Polarisation filtering for small target discrimination in ground clutter

The Electronic Warfare and Radar Division (EWRD) of the Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO) has initiated a number of studies investigating the exploitation of polarimetric analysis for the detection of small targets in strong ground clutter. This paper presents the results of experimental trials and associated signal processing research where an understanding of the scattering mechanisms present is used to design discrimination filters in the polarisation domain. It is shown that these physics-based filters provide highly efficient detection and identification of a variety of manmade targets immersed in strong clutter environments.