A CFAR adaptive subspace detector for second-order Gaussian signals

We study the problem of detecting subspace signals described by the Second-Order Gaussian (SOG) model in the presence of noise whose covariance structure and level are both unknown. Such a detection problem is often called Gauss-Gauss problem in that both the signal and the noise are assumed to have Gaussian distributions. We propose adaptive detectors for the SOG model signals based on a single observation and multiple observations. With a single observation, the detector can be derived in a manner similar to that of the generalized likelihood ratio test (GLRT), but the unknown covariance structure is replaced by sample covariance matrix based on training data. The proposed detectors are constant false alarm rate (CFAR) detectors. As a comparison, we also derive adaptive detectors for the First-Order Gaussian (FOG) model based on multiple observations under the same noise condition as for the SOG model. With a single observation, the seemingly ad hoc CFAR detector for the SOG model is a true GLRT in that it has the same form as the GLRT CFAR detector for the FOG model. We give an approximate closed form of the probability of detection and false alarm in this case. Furthermore, we study the proposed CFAR detectors and compute the performance curves.