Bayesian detection for distributed targets in compound Gaussian sea clutter with lognormal texture

This article investigates the Bayesian detection problem for the distributed targets in the compound Gaussian (CG) sea clutter. The CG sea clutter is formulated as a product of lognormal texture and speckle component with an inverse Wishart distribution covariance matrix (CM). A generalized likelihood ratio test (GLRT) based Bayesian detector, which can operate without training data, is proposed by integrating the speckle CM and estimating the texture using the maximum a posteriori (MAP) criterion. Additionally, three other Bayesian detectors are designed for distributed targets by exploiting the two-step GLRT, the complex-valued Rao, and Wald tests. We first derive the test statistics assuming known texture and speckle CM. Then, by incorporating the MAP-estimated texture components and speckle CM into the test statistics, we present three Bayesian detectors for distributed targets. Finally, simulation experiments validate the detection performance of the proposed Bayesian detectors using both simulated and real sea clutter data.