Gradient Vector Flow Snake for Airborne Pulsed Doppler Radar Clutter Tracking

For an airborne lookdown pulsed Doppler (PD) radar, clutter power often changes dynamically about 80 dB with wide clutter distribution in range and Doppler as the platform moves. Therefore, the clutter tracking techniques are required to guide the selection of const false alarm rate (CFAR) schemes. The aim of this work is exploring the possibility of tracking clutters using image segmentation algorithms and employing gradient vector flow snake (GVF-snake) for clutter tracking. Characteristics of the PD radar clutter and behaviors of the GVF-snake are covered after brief introduction, followed by demonstrations and analyses on tracking results. After the studies on tracking from different types of clutters, including simulated and real ones acquired from airborne radar, conclusions on the GVF-snake tracking algorithm are given