Influence of high-resolution processing on background noise distribution in ship-borne radar

When a high-resolution algorithm is applied in a ship-borne radar, its non-linearity and distributional characteristics before high-resolution processing determine the distributional characteristics of background clutter after high resolution and detector design afterwards. Because background noise before high-resolution has physical significance, the statistical model of first-order Bragg lines and second-order components of sea clutter is put forward. Then, by using higher order cumulative quantity´s statistical verification of actual measured data, it is concluded that the background noise before high resolution conforms to normal distribution in a ship-borne radar. The non-linearity of the high-resolution algorithm means that the background noise after high-resolution processing conforms to non-normal distribution. Non-normal-distributed clutter mainly includes Weibull, lognormal, and K-clutter. Rayleigh clutter can be seen as a special case of Weibull clutter. These clutter types have different statistical characteristics and can be discriminated by recognition of clutter characteristics. The numerical domain´s distribution after high-resolution processing is determined by an improved, minimum entropy, clutter characteristics recognition method based on the AIC rule, namely, a two-parameter domain-scanning method. This identification method has a higher recognition rate. It is verified that the background noise after high-resolution by pre-whitened-constrained-MUSIC conforms to lognormal distribution.