Robust Estimation of Scattering Center Parameters in Long-Tailed K-Distribution Clutter

The M-estimation method is used to obtain robust estimation of DE (damped exponential) scattering center parameters in long-tailed clutter. Firstly, the shortcoming of Prony-based M-estimation method is analyzed. Then, two effective methods realizing M-estimation of DE-model are proposed, one is based on the Nelder-Mead simplex search algorithm, the other is based on the iterative ESPRIT method. Lastly, Monte-Carlo simulation test is performed to validate the effectiveness of the proposed methods. The results show that both methods perform better than the Prony-based method or non-robust estimation approaches in long-tailed K-distribution clutter