Clutter detection algorithms for airborne pulse-Doppler radar

Clutter detection is an important stage of target detection. Clutter may not always appear around zero Doppler frequency when realistic terrain models and moving platforms are considered. Two algorithms developed for clutter detection using range-Doppler matrix elements and their performance analysis are presented in this paper. The first algorithm has higher error rates but lower computational complexity whereas the second one has lower error rates but higher computational complexity. The algorithms detect clutter position by filtering range-Doppler matrix elements via non-linear filters.