A Study on Improving the Performance of Low-Altitude, High-Speed Target Detection at Sea Using Dual-Band Radar

Abstract

Low-altitude and high-speed targets that fly close to the sea level are generally detected using a single-band moving target indicator (MTI) technique. The MTI technique detects a moving target by filtering out the sea-clutter Doppler spectrum. However, when detecting a low-altitude, high-speed target flying close to the sea, blind speed problems can occur because of the fast maneuvering characteristics of the target. Moreover, multipath phenomena and false alarm may occur due to the influence of the sea. Such problems make detection difficult. In this paper, we propose a detector suitable for high-speed targets in sea conditions using dual-band radar. Low-altitude and high-speed targets were modeled by considering the maritime situation, and robust detection against blind speed and multipath phenomena was confirmed by applying the proposed technique to the average Doppler power of the received signal in each band. Finally, simulations for various speeds and distances of the target confirmed that the proposed method showed improved target detection performance than the existing single-band method when detecting low-altitude, high-speed targets in sea conditions.