Practical signal processing algorithm for wide-area surveillance-GMTI mode

On the basis of the real data acquired with an X-band airborne wide-area surveillance (WAS)-GMTI radar, a practical signal processing algorithm for WAS-GMTI mode is proposed, and it is simple and effective for real-time processing. The key feature of the new algorithm is that the spatial steering vector and fixed channel error are estimated according to the result of the Doppler centroid estimation. This is due to the fact that the angle corresponding to the Doppler centroid is just the antenna look direction. In this study, the detailed description of the algorithm is presented with four steps: pre-processing, clutter suppression, constant false alarm rate detection and parameter estimation. Besides, to observe the effect of the proposed algorithm, the real data processing results are shown after each step. Finally, moving target positioning results of five successive scan periods is presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the new algorithm.