Canadian East Coast radar trials and the K-distribution

The use of the K-distribution to describe the amplitude statistics of sea clutter collected with an instrument-quality X-band radar off the East Coast of Canada is investigated. It is shown that the K-distribution is suitable for modelling the amplitude statistics of both likepolarised and crosspolarised radar configurations. The amplitude statistics of small ice targets (growlers) in spiky clutter are also examined; the results obtained indicate that using only long-term amplitude statistics is not sufficient for the reliable detection of such targets in the presence of sea clutter. Furthermore, it is shown that the crosspolarised channel does not offer any added benefit to small target detection when considering only long-term amplitude statistics. The authors also consider the phase statistics of sea clutter and show them to be uniformly distributed on 2π