The Doppler Spectra of Medium Grazing Angle Sea Clutter; Part 1: Characterisation

This paper is concerned with the characterisation of Doppler spectra from high range resolution X-band radar sea clutter observed from an airborne platform over the range of grazing angles, 15° to 45°. It is observed that when looking up or down wind there is a strong correlation between mean Doppler shift and local spectrum intensity. When combined with random fluctuations of spectrum width, these characteristics give the spectra a temporal and spatial variability. This behaviour has previously been observed in low grazing angle data and these results confirm the wider applicability of the models developed using that data. The modelling method is also extended here to capture the bimodal behaviour observed with high intensity returns from breaking waves looking up or down-wind

Passive Automatic Identification System for Maritime Surveillance

This work describes the main achievements in the Passive AIS (P-AIS) project stage. The extensive literature research in the second chapter concludes performing additional in-situ experiments to estimate reliable target RCS and clutter reflectivity values at the AIS frequency range. The typical effective RCS distribution for ferry, yacht and small wooden boat is experimentally drawn; it reaches up to 26dBsm for the ferry. A clutter model is created, taking into account the literature and the experimental study. The AIS signal waveform is analyzed and the potential range and Doppler resolution is defined. More specifically, the signal ambiguity function gives approximately 20km of range resolution and 40Hz Doppler resolution. A coverage prediction tool, based on the bistatic radar equation, including the aforementioned clutter model; bistatic geometry theory; the effective target RCS; the antenna pattern; the AIS air interface parameters is made. The tool estimates the possible P-AIS coverage area. The work concludes that: even in case of high sea state, the sea is considered as a smooth surface reflection for low grazing angle of observation in the VHF range; the equidistant SNR areas change from Cassini shape to single oval receiver centered; the AIS energy provides excellent target “visibility” if the clutter is not considered. Discussions for further clutter reduction and system sophistication are arisen.JRC.G.4-Maritime affair

Основные характеристики морского клатера, влияющие на обнаружение малоразмерных малоподвижных целей морскими РЛС

В роботі здійснюється пошук математичної моделі морського клатера, придатної для створення на її основі алгоритму виявлення малорозмірних малорухомих цілей морськими РЛС. В результаті аналізу джерел для моделювання стохастичного розподілу амплітуди морського клатера обирається компонована Гаусова модель, оскільки її адекватність підтверджена найбільшою кількістю дослідників. В якості перспективної альтернативи стохастичній моделі обирається обговорювана в останнє десятиліття в літературі модель, основана на теорії хаосу, перевага використання якої для вирішення даного класу задач потребує остаточного підтвердження або заперечення.Searching of the sea clutter mathematical model is carried out in this paper. It is suitable to create based on it algorithm for small slow moving targets detection by marine radars. The compound Gaussian model for modeling sea clutter amplitude stochastic distribution is selected as a result of the sources analysis, because it was confirmed by most of researches. The discussed in the literature model based on chaos theory is choosen as perspective alternative for stochastic model; its advantage of using it for such problems solution must be definitively proved or denied. It was proposed many different distributions for high resolution sea clutter amplitude data modeling. The most frequently reported in the literature are K, Log-Normal and Weibull distributions. K distribution belonging to a compound-Gaussian model has the most significant theoretical and experimental background. This distribution choice is physically explained basing on the processes taking place when electromagnetic waves scattered from capillarity and gravity sea waves create a composed echo. Signal representing this echo is the product of two random components, called texture and speckle. Texture is the result of scattering from gravity waves, has a Gamma pdf (in case of K distribution) and corresponds to slow-varying large-scale structure. Speckle is the result of scattering from isolated scatterers (capillarity waves), has a Rayleigh pdf and corresponds to rapid varying small-scale structure. So, K distribution envelope is a compound distribution consisting of a locally Rayleigh distribution speckle whose mean is modulated by a gamma distribution texture. All researches consider Rayleigh pdf for speckle. The lognormal, generalized Gaussian, inverse gamma and some other distributions were proposed for the texture. Due to literature analyses it is seen that texture distribution depends on radar range resolution, but strong dependence is not proved. Some scientists modified K distribution to K-A distribution consisting of the Rayleigh, gamma and Poisson distributions to describe better spikes appearence caused by whitecaps and bursts. Using of Weibull-Weibull (WW) and KK distributions was proposed for high grazing angle and high resolution sea clutter. Doppler characteristics of the sea clutter has been investigated by many researchers and now we have well developed theory. It is known empirical behavior of sea clutter doppler spectrum for different conditions – grazing angle, resolution, wind speed, polarisation and others. Lee, Walker and Ward models are used for sea clutter doppler spectrum describing. Fast moving targets can be effectively detected in heavy sea clutter by doppler radars. But existing theory cannot improve detection of slow moving small targets in heavy sea clutter, because slow moving targets have doppler shift compared to doppler shift of sea clutter. Correlation properties of high resolution sea clutter cannot be derived from its doppler spectrum. In alternative to stohastic model, many researches prefer deterministic model and use chaos theory to describe sea clutter. This choise is based on the fact that both hydrodynamic and electromagnetic therory relying on deterministic models only. If deterministic theory usefulness in applying to high resolution see clutter description be proved completely, it can lead to great progress for small targets in heavy sea clutter detection; because in this case sea clutter behavior can be predicted if initial conditions are precisely known. Using chaotic model for high resolution sea clutter description is highly disputed in recent years, and many researches have questioned first results of high resolution sea clutter describing with chaotic theory usage by Haykin. But great possibilities can give deterministic model for small targets detection definitively proving its ability to describe high resolution sea clutter data precisely causes different scientists to return to chaos theory again and again. Promising results in this field was obtained by using multifractal theory, but still there are not strong methodological background of using deterministic models for small slow moving targets in sea clutter detection, so it is required to make research to prove or deny deterministic models usefulness for high resolution sea clutter data description.В работе осуществляется поиск математической модели морского клатера, пригодной для создания на ее основе алгоритма обнаружения малоразмерных малоподвижных целей морскими РЛС. В результате анализа источников для моделирования стохастического распределения амплитуды морского клатера избирается составная Гауссова модель, поскольку ее состоятельность подтверждена наибольшим количеством исследователей. В качестве перспективной альтернативы стохастической модели избирается обсуждаемая в литературе модель, основанная на теории хаоса, преимущество использования которой для решения данного класса задач требует окончательного подтверждения или отрицания

The Doppler Spectra of Medium Grazing Angle Sea Clutter; Part 2: Model Assessment and Simulation

This paper is concerned with the assessment of models of Doppler spectra, derived from high range resolution X-band radar sea clutter observed from an airborne platform over the range of grazing angles, 15 to 45. When looking up or downwind these models represent the strong correlation between mean Doppler shift and local spectrum intensity. When combined with random fluctuations of spectrum width, these characteristics give the spectra a temporal and spatial variability. The models are used to predict clutter spectrum statistics as a function of Doppler frequency and these are compared with statistics derived from the original data. It is also shown how realistic range-varying coherent clutter returns can be simulated using the models

Modeling and Parameter Estimation of Sea Clutter Intensity in Thermal Noise

abstract: A critical problem for airborne, ship board, and land based radars operating in maritime or littoral environments is the detection, identification and tracking of targets against backscattering caused by the roughness of the sea surface. Statistical models, such as the compound K-distribution (CKD), were shown to accurately describe two separate structures of the sea clutter intensity fluctuations. The first structure is the texture that is associated with long sea waves and exhibits long temporal decorrelation period. The second structure is the speckle that accounts for reflections from multiple scatters and exhibits a short temporal decorrelation period from pulse to pulse. Existing methods for estimating the CKD model parameters do not include the thermal noise power, which is critical for real sea clutter processing. Estimation methods that include the noise power are either computationally intensive or require very large data records. This work proposes two new approaches for accurately estimating all three CKD model parameters, including noise power. The first method integrates, in an iterative fashion, the noise power estimation, using one-dimensional nonlinear curve fitting, with the estimation of the shape and scale parameters, using closed-form solutions in terms of the CKD intensity moments. The second method is similar to the first except it replaces integer-based intensity moments with fractional moments which have been shown to achieve more accurate estimates of the shape parameter. These new methods can be implemented in real time without requiring large data records. They can also achieve accurate estimation performance as demonstrated with simulated and real sea clutter observation datasets. The work also investigates the numerically computed Cram\'er-Rao lower bound (CRLB) of the variance of the shape parameter estimate using intensity observations in thermal noise with unknown power. Using the CRLB, the asymptotic estimation performance behavior of the new estimators is studied and compared to that of other estimators.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Electrical Engineering 201

Polarization techniques for mitigation of low grazing angle sea clutter

Maritime surveillance radars are critical in commerce, transportation, navigation, and defense. However, the sea environment is perhaps the most challenging of natural radar backdrops because maritime radars must contend with electromagnetic backscatter from the sea surface, or sea clutter. Sea clutter poses unique challenges in very low grazing angle geometries, where typical statistical assumptions regarding sea clutter backscatter do not hold. As a result, traditional constant false alarm rate (CFAR) detection schemes may yield a large number of false alarms while objects of interest may be challenging to detect. Solutions posed in the literature to date have been either computationally impractical or lacked robustness. This dissertation explores whether fully polarimetric radar offers a means of enhancing detection performance in low grazing angle sea clutter. To this end, MIT Lincoln Laboratory funded an experimental data collection using a fully polarimetric X-band radar assembled largely from commercial off-the-shelf components. The Point de Chene Dataset, collected on the Atlantic coast of Massachusetts’ Cape Ann in October 2015, comprises multiple sea states, bandwidths, and various objects of opportunity. The dataset also comprises three different polarimetric transmit schemes. In addition to discussing the radar, the dataset, and associated post-processing, this dissertation presents a derivation showing that an established multiple input, multiple output radar technique provides a novel means of simultaneous polarimetric scattering matrix measurement. A novel scheme for polarimetric radar calibration using a single active calibration target is also presented. Subsequent research leveraged this dataset to develop Polarimetric Co-location Layering (PCL), a practical algorithm for mitigation of low grazing angle sea clutter, which is the most significant contribution of this dissertation. PCL routinely achieves a significant reduction in the standard CFAR false alarm rate while maintaining detections on objects of interest. Moreover, PCL is elegant: It exploits fundamental characteristics of both sea clutter and object returns to determine which CFAR detections are due to sea clutter. We demonstrate that PCL is robust across a range of bandwidths, pulse repetition frequencies, and object types. Finally, we show that PCL integrates in parallel into the standard radar signal processing chain without incurring a computational time penalty

First Order Sea Clutter Cross Section for HF Hybrid Sky-Surface Wave Radar

This paper presents a modified method to simulate the first order sea clutter cross section for high frequency (HF) hybrid sky-surface wave radar, based on the existent model applied in the bistatic HF surface wave radar. The modification focuses on the derivation of Bragg scattering frequency and the ionosphere dispersive impact on the clutter resolution cell. Meanwhile, an analytic expression to calculate the dispersive transfer function is derived on condition that the ionosphere is spherical stratified. Simulation results explicate the variance of the cross section after taking account of the influence triggered by the actual clutter resolution cell, and the spectral width of the first order sea clutter is defined so as to compare the difference. Eventually, experiment results are present to verify the rationality and validity of the proposed method

Improved Shape Parameter Estimation in Pareto Distributed Clutter with Neural Networks

The main problem faced by naval radars is the elimination of the clutter input which is a distortion signal appearing mixed with target reflections. Recently, the Pareto distribution has been related to sea clutter measurements suggesting that it may provide a better fit than other traditional distributions. The authors propose a new method for estimating the Pareto shape parameter based on artificial neural networks. The solution achieves a precise estimation of the parameter, having a low computational cost, and outperforming the classic method which uses Maximum Likelihood Estimates (MLE). The presented scheme contributes to the development of the NATE detector for Pareto clutter, which uses the knowledge of clutter statistics for improving the stability of the detection, among other applications