Sea clutter modelling for space-time processing

The generation of synthetic environments, especially surface clutters, is of utmost importance for the study, the development and the qualification of radars. We focus here on sea clutter observed from airborne radars. The modeling of sea clutter is fairly different with regard to the ground clutter one. Indeed, the sea surface is a “deformable” surface unlike the land surface that is a “static” surface. Three levels of complexity of the clutter simulation are considered from the non-coherent single channel clutter up to coherent signals on multiple channels involved in complex detection modes such as STAP taking benefit on Space and Time correlations. A discussion on the interest of such STAP modes face to sea clutter ends the paper.

I. Introduction

The performance of a radar system depends a lot on the nature of the targets and the nature of its environment, especially the parasitic clutter coming from the earth's surface.