Spread E, F layer ionospheric clutter identification in range-Doppler map for HFSWR

Wide range covering, strong intensity, time-variant, fluctuation and irregular distribution of the spread E, F layer ionospheric clutter badly affects the system performance of High Frequency Surface Wave Radar (HFSWR). A spread E, F layer ionospheric clutter identification method is proposed based on the region segmentation results and region characteristics of the clutter. First of all, convolution template is used for locating the edge of the clutter, then the ratio of the number of the samples belonging to some segmented region and the total number of the samples in the region of interest (ROI) is used for setting the determinative threshold of the clutter region. Experiments with real data manifest that the proposed method can describe the effect of the spread ionospheric clutter to HFSWR. The quantitative analysis is consistent with the real data observation. The result can be used as a worthwhile reference for clutter mitigation, carrier frequency selection or radar system evaluation.