An Improved DPT-based Estimator and its Application to Maneuvering Air Target Detection for 0TH Radar

In this paper, we propose an improved DPT-based estimator, and give its application to maneuvering air target detection in over-the-horizon radar (OTHR). The discrete polynomial-phase transform (DPT) is an efficient analysis tool for the polynomial-phase signal (PPS), and it provides accurate estimation on the parameters of the PPS. However, the DPT-based estimator requires a sufficiently high input signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). To overcome this limitation and extend the scope of its application, a pre-processing method, including frequency-band compressing and time-frequency filtering, is added before the nonlinear operator involved in the original algorithm. The resulting algorithm is proved to have a rather good performance in low SNR cases, and can be applied to enhance the detection performance of the maneuvering air target in OTHR. The simulation results are given to demonstrate the validity of the proposed algorithm