Enhanced Small-Target Detection and Tracking Using a Mode-Adaptive Constant False Alarm Rate (CFAR) Detector

Conventional CFAR detection processing has difficulty in heterogeneous clutter (i.e., maritime clutter) because the fixed data size windowing is not well matched to the spatial scales of the wave field over a wide range of sea states. The non-Gaussian nature of heterogeneous clutter gives rise to significant spatially varying CFAR loss to maintain low false alarms that desensitize the radar in stressing clutter conditions. Furthermore, conventional CFAR detection processing will have difficulty maintaining consistent performance with varying range resolution and fixed window data sizes at the PRI level. Recent advances in radar resource management algorithms make use of rapid mode interleaving at the PRI level on dynamic irregular time scales with different range resolution and associated data rates. Optimal detection of targets requires adaptive CFAR processing over a wide range of maritime clutter conditions (e.g., up to and including sea state 5). LSI is currently working on an advanced adaptive clutter removal processing technique that shows promising performance with conventional CFAR processing, and the development of mode adaptive CFAR detection processing algorithms is a natural extension to this effort.