Nonlinear polarisation-vector translation in radar systems

With current technology, the real-time implementation of a multinotch logic-product (MLP) polarisation suppression filter which covers only a moderate area in polarisation space can only be realised as a rather bulky piece of hardware (typically with more than 61 notches). This has led to the development of the concept of nonlinear polarisation-vector translation (PVT), which allows the number of notches in the MLP filter to be drastically reduced without seriously degrading the effectiveness of the overall process. The mathematical representation of the nonlinear PVT process is described in the paper, and a limited theoretical assessment is given of its performance when used in conjunction with a single-notch filter in a target-plus-clutter environment. By way of illustration, some results are included on the suppression capability obtained when using experimentally derived rain data.