Improved radar detection using adaptive multiband polarization processing

Two results concerning clutter estimation are presented. First, the use of frequency diversity improves adaptive detection performance to a greater extent than has been reported for optimum processors under an equal transmit energy constraint. Second, the MPGLR (multiband polarization generalized likelihood ratio) algorithm improves detection performance in the polarization domain and, in contrast to adaptive single-band processing under severely limited observation conditions, can approach the performance of the optimum processor. It is concluded that multiband processing improves performance by increasing the quantity of independent and identically distributed data vectors available for clutter estimation. A means of further improving detection of small targets is presented. This was accomplished by modifying the threshold of the MPGLR test according to the similarity of the maximum likelihood estimate of the target vector to the model assumption