Long-Time Coherent Integration Algorithm for Sea Surface Maneuvering Small Target Based on Dynamic Programming

Abstract

Detection of sea surface maneuvering small target has long been faced with the problems of strong sea clutter background and low signal-clutter-noise ratio (SCNR), the long-time coherent integration algorithm can effectively improve the SCNR. A long-time coherent integration algorithm is proposed in this paper to process the echo signals of sea surface strongly maneuvering targets with both range and Doppler frequency migration. By using the idea of stage optimization, this algorithm can compensate the range and Doppler frequency migration at the same time, efficiently accumulate the target energy along the trajectory of the target, and effectively improve the SCNR of the target. In addition, this algorithm can also achieve the precise tracking of the target speed and position during the accumulation process, and is suitable for any maneuvering mode. The actual data processing and analysis show that this algorithm can realize the effective accumulation of maneuvering targets with low SCNR, and the accumulation gain is improved by more than 6dB compared with existing methods.