A STAP approach to estimate drift angle and aircraft velocity

Space-time adaptive processing (STAP) is a powerful two-dimensional filtering algorithm for moving target detection and clutter suppression. However, most previous studies of STAP theory have focused on side-looking array radar (SLAR). This paper addresses the issue of non-sidelooking array radar from a STAP point of view. From the pattern of the minimum variance distortionless response (MVDR) spectra, we can accurately estimate the drift angle by applying some fitting algorithms. We also exploit the fact that the Doppler and spatial frequencies are almost proportional to estimate the aircraft velocity in the same manner as the drift angle. The merits of these methods are studied by using the real data from multi-channel airborne radar measurement (MCARM) system.