Detection of targets embedded in multipath clutter with Time Reversal

Detection of targets in complex environments is of importance in both radar and sonar applications. Recent work has shown that the use of Time Reversal (TR) techniques improves the performance of systems operating in deterministic channels with a significant multipath return. This paper extends those results to stationary random channels with significant multipath. We develop a TR-based approach and derive the Likelihood Ratio Test (LRT) for this approach. We compare this TR-LRT to an LRT derived through a “water filling” approach. We derive theoretical performance curves for the water filling LRT, and evaluate both the water filling and TR detectors with Monte Carlo simulations. For the scenarios tested, we show that TR achieves an SNR gain of 1–2dB over the water filling detector.