Adaptive normalised matched filter performance in medium grazing angle sea clutter

The detection performance of the adaptive normalised matched filter (ANMF) detector structure is assessed against real multi-channel, medium grazing angle, radar sea clutter data processed via space-time adaptive processing (STAP). Significant departures from constant false alarm rate (CFAR) performance are observed and linked to discrepancies between the assumed form of the spherically invariant random process (SIRP) which is used to derive the ANMF detection statistics and the actual form of the stochastic model representing the real world clutter characteristics.