A switching constant false alarm rate technique for high frequency surface wave radar

A novel constant false alarm rate (CFAR) technique is proposed as a near optimal solution for detection in mixed homogeneous and nonhomogeneous environments. This CFAR technique explores both the advantages of cell averaging CFAR and order statistics CFAR detectors. We introduce a criterion to derive a near-optimal target detector for high frequency surface wave radar. The effectiveness of the new technique is demonstrated by comparing its performance with traditional CFAR technique using data collected from the HFSWR network on the east coast of Canada.