Sea and ground radar clutter modeling

Abstract

The modeling of the clutter echoes is a central issue for the design and performance evaluation of radar systems. The aim of this paper is to describe the state-of-the-art approaches to the modeling and understanding of land and sea clutter echoes and their implications on performance prediction and signal processors design. The tutorial is mainly divided in 5 parts: (i) Radar sea and ground clutter phenomena, measurements and measurement limitations, at high and low resolution, high and low grazing angles. (ii) Statistical and spectral models for windblown vegetation and sea surfaces. (iii) Experimental validation of statistical and spectral models, for both sea and land clutter, using recorded data sets. (iv) Impact of the clutter models on radar performance for detection and imaging, there including the effect on CFAR techniques and high resolution SAR imaging. (v) Radar clutter simulation for radar performance evaluation.