Sea clutter characteristics analysis and target detection based on HHT

Non-linear & non-smooth is the important characteristics of sea clutter. Hilbert-Huang Transform is a new analysis method for nonlinear & non-smooth signals. When doing the Hilbert-Huang Transform to the radar signals, after the Empirical Mode Decomposition, the Trend Function and parts of Intrinsic Mode Functions are different between the sea clutter and target. By use of this characteristic, this paper presents a new target detection approach in sea clutter - Trend Function Detection method. Some datasets from real radar are used to illustrate this approach can improve the detection performance of slow and small target in strong sea clutter obviously.