Sub-aperture based blind speed side lobe (BSSL) suppression in Radon Fourier transform (RFT)

The Radon-Fourier transform (RFT) is a novel long-time coherent integration method we have previously proposed for far-range, weak and high speed target detection. Nevertheless, due to the discrete pulse sampling, finite range resolution and limited integration time, the blind speed side lobe (BSSL) phenomenon may inevitably appear in the RFT output. The existence of BSSL can lead to large false alarms and detection loss in the RFT. To address this problem, a new BSSL suppression method is proposed in this paper. By jointly processing the two different sub-aperture RFT outputs, the BSSL can be easily suppressed without integration loss. Furthermore, two evaluation criterions of the BSSL suppression are also proposed. Finally, detailed numerical experiments are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.