Space Based Radar (SBR) Bistatic Space-Time Adaptive Processing (STAP)

Wide-area surveillance of airborne and ground-moving targets is an emerging research topic examined by the military services, DARPA and in the open literature. A space-based bistatic radar system offers many advantages for use in surveillance including the potential for covert wide-area coverage. However, it must contend with increased clutter spread due to higher platform speeds which causes the masking of targets over a larger portion of the angle-Doppler space and makes an effective clutter mitigation strategy even more vital. In addition, clutter in a bistatic radar is inherently non-stationary (i.e., the angle-Doppler spectra vary from range bin to range bin) thus complicating the training for STAP algorithms. The proposed research program will develop a computer model for evaluating the performance of a bistatic SBR that employs STAP and apply that model in the development of robust STAP techniques to be employed in a challenging environment of non-stationary range-ambiguous clutter, training corruption, and clutter discretes. Bistatic radar system concepts involving combinations of MEO and LEO satellites as well as airborne adjunct platforms will be investigated. Performance metrics of interest will include area coverage, achievable minimum detectable velocity, and geolocation accuracy