Synthesizing range profile in clutter for Polarimetric stepped-frequency radar

Exploiting the polarization information can improve the performance of radar systems. In this paper, we consider the formation of range profile in a clutter background for polarimetric stepped-frequency radar. The optimal receiver polarization is derived from the signal-to-clutter ratio (SCR) maximization to mitigate clutter, which is as similar as Polarimetric Whitening Filter (PWF). After clutter cancellation, a method based on an entropy minimization principle is used for motion compensation. The synthesized polarimetric range profile can improve the radar detection performance, especially when the slowly moving low-RCS targets are buried in heavy clutter.