OFDM chirp radar for adaptive target detection in low grazing angle

Low-altitude target detection is of great importance in radar applications, especially for military radar to counter the targets penetrated from low grazing angles. However, it is a challenge to detect the targets in low grazing angle area due to severe multipath reflection effects. In this study, the authors propose orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) chirp waveform for target detection in low grazing angle region. The OFDM chirp waveform has better peak-to-average-power ratio level and provides larger time-bandwidth product than that of conventional OFDM waveform, which is beneficial for target detection. Two different radar schemes, namely, OFDM chirp radar and OFDM chirp multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) radar, are studied under the Earth's curvature geometry model with the consideration of realistic multipath reflection effects. The generalised likelihood ratio test algorithm is developed by jointly exploiting the advantages of OFDM chirp waveform and MIMO configuration in increased degrees of freedom. In addition, an adaptive algorithm is further applied to enhance the target detection performance. All proposed schemes are verified by numerical results.