Effects of Multiple Targets on the Mean Level STAP Detector

Robustness of the constant false alarm rate (CFAR) mean level adaptive detector for phased array radar equipped with a space-time adaptive processing (STAP) algorithm is analysed when the secondary data is contaminated by multiple interfering targets at different ranges. Closed-form analysis is first given based on the assumption of Gaussian interference and Swerling I target models. The deleterious effect on target detection is then experimentally examined using the multi channel airborne radar measurements (MCARM) database. It is found that both the probability of detection and the false alarm rate decrease in accordance with the sum of the signal power of the interfering targets. In addition, the false alarm rate is very sensitive to the presence of interfering targets, in the sense that a small sum (below the noise floor) of their signal power can lower the false alarm rate