Novel height finding technique based on spatial filtering in VHF radar

The capability of VHF radar in height finding is limited by its wide beam and the multipath caused by ground reflection. In this study, a novel height finding method based on spatial filtering (MBSF) for VHF radar is proposed. In each elevation angle search, a spatial filter is formed with beam pointing deviating from the search angle. Two nulls of spatial filter in the search angle and its corresponding specular angle are constructed respectively to cancel the direct and the multipath echoes. The elevation angle and height of target can be estimated by finding the search angle which corresponds to the minimum value of the filtering of the received array signal. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified by simulations and real data processing.