Adaptive polarimetric processing for surveillance radar

For detection performance improvement of surveillance radars with the receiver polarization diversity, a new adaptive polarimetric processor is developed in this paper. The new processor, called polarization discontinuity detector (PDD) is derived from the generalized likelihood ratio (GLR) test principle for the unspecified target component. Closed-form expressions of its probabilities of detection and false alarm are derived, and its performance is compared to that of the adaptive polarization canceler (APC) and Kelly´s GLR processor. It is found that the PDD has very similar performance as Kelly´s GLR in Gaussian clutter, both of which have embedded CFAR and outperform the APC, especially when the target polarization state is close to the clutter´s. However, the PDD is much simpler than Kelly´s GLR for hardware/software implementation, as the PDD does not require a costly two parameter filter bank to cover the actually unknown target polarization state as Kelly´s GLR does.<>