Two-Dimensional Processing for Radar Systems

The received signal in an airborne surveillance radar array is referred to as a space/time process, wherein the spatial connotation arises from the spacial diversity of the antenna array elements. In general, the received signal contains target, receiver and jammer noise, and spatially-distributed ground clutter components. A radar space/time signal is often represented as a one-dimensional (1-D) vector (multichannel) process. The 1-D vector representation has been adopted extensively in the development and analysis of optimum joint-domain and sub-optimum block-covariance algorithms for target detection and interference rejection. Alternatively, a space/time signal can be represented as a two-dimentional (2-D) scalar process. The 2-D representation is essentiaal for visualizing an dunderstanding the spectral energy and correlation characteristics of the total signal, and of the gound clutter component in particular. Since 2-D systems can model spatial as well as temporal dynamics, performance improvement over 1-D formulations is anticipated with respect to clutter cancellation. The proposed effort seeks to demonstrate improved target detection usin ga 2-D model-based methodology for space/time signals in an airborne surveillance radar array.