Analysis of K-distributed sea clutter and thermal noise in high range and Doppler resolution radar data

This paper deals with the distribution of signal received by airborne radar in Doppler domain for maritime surveillance mission. It is composed of thermal noise and sea clutter which its intensity may be described by a compound K-distribution. The data used was recorded in high range and Doppler resolution by monostatic coherent X-band radar above Mediterranean sea and Atlantic ocean. The statistics of the sea clutter plus noise distributions have been estimated by calculating the complementary cumulative density function of real data. The variation of the fitted shape parameter is compared and discussed in a wide range of data under various conditions.