Weighted target detector via estimated SNR in a multipath environment

Abstract

Multipath effect cause serious performance degradation in low-altitude target detection. To overcome the negative multipath effect in a low-altitude environment, a novel weighted detector based on the estimated signal-to-noise ratio (ESNR) is proposed. By introducing the multipath intensity factor, the signal models for different radar systems in the low-altitude environment are established. Then, inspired by the recent development of cognitive theory, the weighted detector based on ESNR is proposed to strengthen the high SNR channels and suppress the low SNR channels. The eigenfunction method is adopted to derive the theoretical detection probability of the proposed detector. Simulation results suggest that, compared with the traditional equal weight detector, the proposed detector can effectively overcome the negative influence of multipath and improve the detection performance in the low-altitude environment. It is also proved that in most cases, with the proposed method, multi-input multi-output (MIMO) radar has better detection performance than that of other radars in the low-SNR region.