Range-spread target detection in homogenous clutter via short-time GLRT estimation and HOCC integration

It is difficult for high resolution radar (HRR) to detect range-spread maneuvering targets in homogenous clutter. The traditional generalised likelihood ratio test (GLRT) detectors are ineffective in long integration duration, because maneuvering targets suffer from inevitable range walks across cells as well as unpredictable phase change at individual range cells. A new detector is proposed combining the short-time coherent integration based on GLRT estimation, and long-time similarity integration based on high-order crosscorrelation (HOCC) integration. The experimental results based on raw radar target data show that the new detector achieves better detection performance for range-spread manoeuvring targets in homogenous clutter than the existing detectors.