Space-time-range three dimensional adaptive processing

Space-time adaptive processing (STAP) is an effective tool for moving target detection. Conventional STAP methodologies process the angular and Doppler two dimensional data vector. In practical applications, adjacent range cells are statistically dependent due to filtering, since the point spreading function of a target is not an ideal delta function. In this paper, a novel approach incorporating range (fast time) information in STAP is presented for clutter rejection, which we term space-time-range adaptive processing (STRAP). This method takes advantage of the correlation information of neighboring range cells. Therefore, the stationary clutter can be suppressed better compared with traditional STAP algorithms ignoring fast time information, resulting in more effective moving target detection. The validity of the STRAP algorithm is verified by the experiments of processing the real measured data of the three-channel X-band radar and MCARM radar systems.