Slow and small target detection in high sea states

This paper addresses the detection of small and slow craft with Maritime Radar. Fast target detection can be carried out using standard processing such as MMTI (Maritime Moving Target Indicator) regardless of the sea state. However, in case of slow moving targets in high sea state, these methods no longer work because of the intrinsic spreading of the sea clutter. After having summarized the statistical modelling of the sea clutter, in order to highlight its particularity especially when observed with high range resolution waveforms, the paper explains the interest of Track-Before-Detect (TBD) detectors for taking benefits of both high-resolution waveforms and sea clutter properties. Two TBD detectors are compared to standard detectors working on a single dwell.