Martime radar detection perfromance of fast and slow scan radars using frequency agility

The relative detection performance of fast scan and slow scan radars utilizing frequency agile waveform transmission is examined. A real, wide bandwidth, sea clutter data set is compressed using a set of contiguous narrowband compression filters to create data sets corresponding to three or ten frequency steps. Both a non-coherent and coherent Kelly detection scheme are implemented and tested. A detection performance advantage is demonstrated for the fast scan configuration for both frequency agile sets under coherent Kelly detection. The non-coherent detector case is less clear-cut with a superior fast scan performance noted for the three frequency agile set but equivalent performance noted for both fast and slow scan rates with the 10 frequency agile set.