Improved Joint Domain Localized STAP algorithm based on mainbeam clutter cancellation

The Joint Domain Localized (JDL) Space-Time Adaptive Processing (STAP) algorithm is a relatively effective beam-Doppler domain method when there is no array element error, which is implemented in a Localized Processing Region (LPR) formed by using the spatial and temporal steering vectors. However, when there are array element errors in the system, the performance of the clutter suppression by JDL algorithm would significantly degrade if the LPR was not effectively expanded in the spatial domain. In order to enhance the system robustness to the array element errors, an improved JDL algorithm is proposed in this paper. In the proposed algorithm, the mainbeam clutter cancellation of the Moving Target Indicate (MTI) technique is firstly applied to pre-filter the mainbeam clutter, and then the traditional JDL processing is implemented to suppress the residual clutter. According to the simulations based on the theoretical data and the Mountaintop database, it is found that the improved JDL algorithm can produce much better performance than the traditional JDL algorithm.