Student research highlight estimation of structured covariance matrices for radar STAP

Radar systems using multiple antenna elements that coherently process multiple pulses offer significant benefits, such as overcoming the directivity and resolution limits of a single sensor. Specifically, joint adaptive processing in the spatial and temporal domains called space-time adaptive processing (STAP) creates an ability to suppress interference signals, while simultaneously preserving gain on the desired signal. For STAP implementation, the interference statistics, in particular, the covariance matrix of the disturbance or interference, must be estimated from target-free training data. Therefore, the disturbance covariance estimation plays a pivotal role in radar target detection for radar STAP.