Clutter Subspace Estimation in Low Rank Heterogeneous Noise Context

This paper addresses the problem of the Clutter Subspace Projector (CSP) estimation in the context of a disturbance composed of a Low Rank (LR) heterogeneous clutter, modeled here by a Spherically Invariant Random Vector (SIRV), plus a white Gaussian noise (WGN). In such context, the corresponding LR adaptive filters and detectors require less training vectors than classical methods to reach equivalent performance. Unlike classical adaptive processes, which are based on an estimate of the noise Covariance Matrix (CM), the LR processes are based on a CSP estimate. This CSP estimate is usually derived from a Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) of the CM estimate. However, no Maximum Likelihood Estimator (MLE) of the CM has been derived for the considered disturbance model. In this paper, we introduce the fixed point equation that MLE of the CSP satisfies for a disturbance composed of a LR-SIRV clutter plus a zero mean WGN. A recursive algorithm is proposed to compute this solution. Numerical simulations validate the introduced estimator and illustrate its interest compared to the current state of art.