Long term noncoherent integration across resolvable sea clutter areas

Abstract

The authors analyze both conventional and long-term integration performance in sea clutter using the spatial variation clutter model, taking into account applicable effects of partial overlapping due to integration along multiple paths. It is demonstrated that conventional integration performance is greatly diminished in spatially varying clutter because of lack of ability to perform spatial smoothing. It is also demonstrated that long-term integration across resolvable areas provides for spatial smoothing, significantly enhancing detection performance. Finally, it is shown that for a shipboard radar against sea-skimming missiles, long-term integration provides around 10-dB increase in detection sensitivity over conventional cumulative detection, allowing detection of -30 dBsm sea-skimmers with 90% probability at 10 km range in sea state 4.<>