Polarimetric GLRT for Adaptive Detection in General Array Configuration

Assume that a modern radar system has a general antenna array configuration consisting of primary channels with high-gain beams and reference channels with low-gain beams. The problem of polarimetric adaptive detection in Gaussian disturbance with an unknown covariance matrix is addressed in this work. An adaptive detector is devised according to the design criterion of generalized likelihood ratio test (GLRT). Analytical expressions for the probabilities of detection and false alarm are derived, which are verified through Monte Carlo simulations. It is found that the proposed GLRT bears the constant false alarm rate property against the disturbance covariance matrix. Simulation results also show that the detection performance becomes better as the number of snapshots increases. In the case of a suitable number of snapshots, the increase of primary channels, reference channels, or polarization channels leads to an improvement of detection performance.