High resolution sea clutter and maritime target data: Experimental performance of distributed target coherent detectors

High resolution Ka-band radar data corresponding to small maritime targets and target-free sea-clutter acquisitions are used to evaluate the experimental performance of range distributed target coherent detectors. The statistical analysis of the sub-meter range resolution clutter data shows strong fluctuations of both the spectral shape and power between adjacent range cells. The assessment of the impact of this highly heterogeneous disturbance in the CFAR behavior of distributed target detectors is a key aim of this work. Additionally, the availability of coherent target data at a range resolution of 0.08m, 0.16m and 0.8m has been exploited to analyze the detection performance of both subspace and rank one detection approaches.