Adaptive coherence estimation for radar signal processing

In this paper we derive the probability density functions of the adaptive coherence estimator (ACE) described previously by Scharf and McWhorter (1996). The ACE statistic can also be considered an adaptive CFAR matched sub-space detector (MSD). It is this interpretation which is particularly useful in radar and signal processing. We conclude this paper by applying the adaptive CFAR MSD to data recorded from the Mountaintop radar. These experimental results indicate that, in a channel with time varying gain, the adaptive CFAR MSD has better detection performance than those detectors which are not invariant to this type of scaling.