Robust CFAR Detector Based on KLQ Estimator for Multiple-Target Scenario

Abstract

The order statistic (OS) constant false alarm rate (CFAR) detector is designed from a perspective of quantile estimation and uses the sample quantile (SQ) estimator to estimate background level. Following this idea, we find a more efficient quantile estimator, i.e. Kaigh-Lachenbruch quantile (KLQ) estimator, to construct a robust CFAR detector, which is referred to as KLQ-CFAR. We prove that the KLQ estimator is an asymptotic unbiased estimator to the quantile function and derive the asymptotic variance of KLQ estimator in Exponential case. It is shown that the KLQ estimator has more efficient estimation efficiency than SQ estimator. Subsequently, we explore the performance of KLQ-CFAR in Exponential clutter. In homogeneous background, the KLQ-CFAR conquers the shortcoming of large detection loss of OS-CFAR, and exhibits comparable performance with trimmed mean (TM) CFAR. The superiority of KLQ-CFAR is also reflected in multiple-target scenario, especially in the case where the number of interferences exceeds the preset parameters of KLQ- and TM-CFAR. In this case, the detection performance and false alarm control ability of KLQ-CFAR have significant improvement compared with TM-CFAR. Then, we extend the KLQ-CFAR from Exponential background to non-Gaussian clutter via transformation approach, and obtain the transformed KLQ (TKLQ) CFAR. We take Weibull clutter as a specific example. It is found that the behavior of TKLQ-CFAR in Weibull background is very similar to that of the KLQ-CFAR in Exponential clutter, but the difference lies in that the performance of TKLQ-CFAR is related to Weibull shape parameter. The TKLQ-CFAR tends to have better detection performance with the increase of Weibull shape parameter. Finally, the validity of TKLQ-CFAR is verified in skywave over-the-horizon radar data.