A technique for estimating the detection performance of a skywave over-the-horizon radar

This paper presents a technique for experimentally estimating the single-look detection performance of a skywave over-the-horizon radar system using observations of a live test target. This technique addresses the challenges imposed by time-varying environmental conditions and multiple propagation paths as well as the presence of multiple unknown targets within the data. We show how estimates of the receiver operating characteristic of the radar system can be derived from estimates of the probability of detection and probability of false alarm and present results for a representative system.