Analysis of polarimetric bistatic sea clutter using the NetRAD radar system

Abstract

This paper presents a comparative analysis of amplitude and Doppler spectra statistics from monostatic and bistatic sea clutter data at S-band. These data cover a range of bistatic angles from 60° to 120° and include simultaneous monostatic and co-polarized and cross-polarized bistatic recordings, providing direct comparison of their statistical properties. The time series of amplitude data are fitted to the compound K and K+Noise distribution in the range domain and in the Doppler domain, and the variation of the shape parameter is presented for monostatic and co-polarized and cross-polarized bistatic data as an indication of the spikiness of the clutter. From the analysis of this parameter it is shown that cross-polarized bistatic data tend to be less spiky in the range and Doppler domain than the simultaneous co-polarized bistatic data, and than the simultaneous monostatic data, which could be advantageous in terms of radar detection performance, especially for low-visibility maritime targets.

Challenges in radar sea clutter modelling

“…When considering different radar frequency bands, different scattering mechanisms may manifest themselves and further measurements of Doppler spectra are needed to understand any differences. Some measurements of monostatic and bistatic Doppler spectra have been reported in S-band [59,60], using the NetRAD radar. Further measurements are required to build confidence in wider application of the modelling approaches to different radar frequencies.…”

Correlation analysis of simultaneously collected bistatic and monostatic sea clutter

“…The available wind data for the day reported wind speed of about 9 m/s blowing from a South-Eastern direction, and wave height of between 1 and 3 m depending on the exact time of the day. It should be noted that the same location on the Scarborough area was also used for different data collection performed at different times and described in previous works [9][11] [12]. Furthermore, in this work we report the results associated only to the range cell at the center of the intersection between the monostatic and bistatic antenna patterns [11].…”

Statistical Analysis of High-Resolution Coherent Monopulse Radar Sea Clutter

“…Although in this case the PCFE can achieve good estimation performance of the shape parameter of the distribution, it is computationally expensive. As discussed in [1,16], in the usual situation where the noise level is known, the method to estimate the shape parameter of the distribution by using the noise power estimate and higherorder moments can not only ensure the estimation accuracy but also improve the estimation speed. Therefore, this MoM based on the estimated noise power is used here to estimate the shape parameter.…”

“…Due to the interaction of the sea surface characteristics, the geometry of acquisition, and radar parameters, there are apparent diversities of the statistical behaviors for the different clutter datasets recorded by different radar systems. Over the past few decades, various types of radar sea clutter 2 International Journal of Antennas and Propagation datasets have been collected and studied [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21]. The publications analyzing these datasets have primarily focused on suitable theoretical probability distribution function (PDF) models for sea clutter amplitude or intensity, the Doppler spectrum, the correlation characteristics, the sea spikes, and the average normalized radar cross section.…”