Theoretical Performance of Space-Time Adaptive Processing for Ship Detection by High-Frequency Surface Wave Radars

In this paper, we analyze the levels of performance of the (full or reduced versions of) space-time adaptive processing (STAP) algorithms applied to high-frequency surface wave radars (HFSWRs) for marine target detection to verify whether this family outperforms the usual moving target indication (MTI) algorithms. In fact, STAP algorithms have well-known drawbacks (e.g., large amount of secondary data). The propagation and backscattering of radar signals are included in the covariance matrix calculation. Since the propagation and backscattering have to be derived from physical features of the sea (e.g., sea Doppler) and the atmosphere, we also include the difference induced by the waveform (pulsed radar/chirp) in our study. Moreover, since the inverse covariance matrix is used in the target detection algorithms, matrix conditioning is also inspected for practical implementation reasons. We numerically detail the performance (signal noise clutter ratio and conditioning number of the STAP algorithms) with regards to the MTI performance for several configurations of radar and sea state. These results show that the improvements of signal noise clutter ratio are counterbalanced by a raise of the conditioning number, except in the case of eigencanceler approach. The sea-state parameters have few effects on the performance unlike to radar parameters.

[1]  R. Klemm.  Principles of Space-Time Adaptive Processing , 2002 .

[2]  Levent Sevgi,et al.  A new algorithm for ground wave propagation based on a hybrid ray-mode approach , 1998 .

[3]  M. Levy.  Parabolic Equation Methods for Electromagnetic Wave Propagation , 2000 .

[4]  Weimin Huang,et al.  The Second-Order High Frequency Radar Ocean Surface Cross Section for an Antenna on a Floating Platform , 2012, IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation.

[5]  K. Hasselmann.  On the non-linear energy transfer in a gravity-wave spectrum Part 1. General theory , 1962, Journal of Fluid Mechanics.

[6]  John J. Lemmon,et al.  Wideband model of man‐made HF noise and interference , 1997 .

[7]  O. M. Phillips,et al.  Wave Dynamics and Radio Probing of the Ocean Surface , 1986 .

[8]  Donald E. Barrick,et al.  CODAR wave measurements from a North Sea semisubmersible , 1990 .

[9]  S. Rice.  Reflection of electromagnetic waves from slightly rough surfaces , 1951 .

[10]  Piet M. T. Broersen,et al.  The quality of models for ARMA processes , 1998, IEEE Trans. Signal Process..

[11]  Vladimir P. Krasitskii,et al.  On reduced equations in the Hamiltonian theory of weakly nonlinear surface waves , 1994, Journal of Fluid Mechanics.

[12]  K. Gurgel,et al.  Wellen Radar (WERA): a new ground-wave HF radar for ocean remote sensing , 1999 .

[13]  Samuel Kotz,et al.  Continuous univariate distributions : distributions in statistics , 1970 .

[14]  Daniel R. Fuhrmann,et al.  A CFAR adaptive matched filter detector , 1992 .

[15]  Donald E. Barrick,et al.  Theory of HF and VHF Propagation Across the Rough Sea, 1, The Effective Surface Impedance for a Slightly Rough Highly Conducting Medium at Grazing Incidence , 1971 .

[16]  Paolo Braca,et al.  Maritime surveillance with multiple over-the-horizon HFSW radars: An overview of recent experimentation , 2015, IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine.

[17]  W.L. Melvin,et al.  A STAP overview , 2004, IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine.

[18]  Wen Biyang,et al.  Adaptive cochannel interference suppression based on subarrays for HFSWR , 2005 .

[19]  Giuseppe A. Fabrizio,et al.  High Frequency Over-the-Horizon Radar , 2019, 2019 IEEE Radar Conference (RadarConf).

[20]  Lucy R. Wyatt,et al.  Maximum-Likelihood Estimation of the Directional Distribution of 0.53-Hz Ocean Waves , 1997 .

[21]  D. Barrick,et al.  The second-order shallow-water hydrodynamic coupling coefficient in interpretation of HF radar sea echo , 1986 .

[22]  J. Le Caillec.  Hypothesis Testing for Nonlinearity Detection Based on an MA Model , 2008, IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing.

[23]  N. K. Spencer,et al.  Stochastic-constraints method in nonstationary hot-clutter cancellation. I. Fundamentals and supervised training applications , 1998 .

[24]  Ali Khenchaf,et al.  HFSW Radar Model: Simulation and Measurement , 2010, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing.

[25]  Piet M. T. Broersen,et al.  Automatic identification of time-series models from long autoregressive models , 2005, IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement.

[26]  J.N. Briggs.  Target detection by marine radar , 2005, IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine.

[27]  Joseph R. Guerci,et al.  Optimal and adaptive reduced-rank STAP , 2000, IEEE Trans. Aerosp. Electron. Syst..

[28]  Eric W. Gill,et al.  A combined sea clutter and noise model appropriate to the operation of high‐frequency pulsed Doppler radar in regions constrained by external noise , 2008 .

[29]  Alexander M. Haimovich,et al.  An eigenanalysis interference canceler , 1991, IEEE Trans. Signal Process..

[30]  D. Barrick.  Grazing behavior of scatter and propagation above any rough surface , 1998 .

[31]  A. Farina,et al.  Spatial adaptive subspace detection in OTH radar , 2003 .

[32]  J. Maresca,et al.  Theoretical limitation of the sea on the detection of low Doppler targets by over-the-horizon radar , 1982 .

[33]  T. Senior.  Impedance boundary conditions for imperfectly conducting surfaces , 1960 .

[34]  A. Haimovich,et al.  The eigencanceler: adaptive radar by eigenanalysis methods , 1996, IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems.

[35]  Mike D. E. Turley,et al.  Impulsive noise rejection in HF radar using a linear prediction technique , 2003, 2003 Proceedings of the International Conference on Radar (IEEE Cat. No.03EX695).

[36]  Jean-Marc Le Caillec,et al.  Influence of the Waveform on Propagation and Sea Radar Cross Section of HF Radar Signals , 2014, IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation.

[37]  Christophe Sintes,et al.  Focusing Problems of a Buried Point Scatterer using a Low Frequency SAR , 2011, IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems.

[38]  John J. Lemmon,et al.  Wideband model of HF atmospheric radio noise , 2001 .

[39]  Wei Wang,et al.  Radio frequency interference cancellation for sea-state remote sensing by high-frequency radar , 2011 .

[40]  John R. Herman,et al.  Bandwidth expansion effects on the voltage deviation parameter (Vd) of MF and HF atmospheric radio noise , 1987 .

[41]  E. Gill,et al.  An analysis of the scattering of high‐frequency electromagnetic radiation from rough surfaces with application to pulse radar operating in backscatter mode , 2000 .

[42]  L. Sevgi,et al.  Numerical Investigations of and Path Loss Predictions for Surface Wave Propagation Over Sea Paths Including Hilly Island Transitions , 2010, IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation.

[43]  Hong Wang,et al.  On adaptive spatial-temporal processing for airborne surveillance radar systems , 1994 .

[44]  A. Shutko,et al.  On the influence of dielectric property variations on the microwave radiation of a water surface , 1982 .

[45]  D. Barrick,et al.  On the Nonlinear Theory for Gravity Waves on the Ocean's Surface. Part I: Derivations , 1977 .

[46]  Weimin Huang,et al.  The First-Order High Frequency Radar Ocean Surface Cross Section for an Antenna on a Floating Platform , 2010, IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation.

[47]  Anthony M. PONSFORD,et al.  A review of high frequency surface wave radar for detection and tracking of ships , 2010, Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences.

[48]  Yuri I. Abramovich,et al.  Method in Nonstationary Hot-Clutter Cancellation- Part II: Unsupervised Training Applications , 2000 .

[49]  M.C. Wicks,et al.  Space-time adaptive processing: a knowledge-based perspective for airborne radar , 2006, IEEE Signal Processing Magazine.

[50]  Dominique Pastor,et al.  The Clutter SIRP and Gaussian Models: a Brief Overview and a Comparison , 2008 .

[51]  A.M. Haimovich,et al.  Eigenanalysis-based space-time adaptive radar: performance analysis , 1997, IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems.

[52]  E. W. Gill,et al.  Inherent Limitations in High-Frequency Radar Remote Sensing Based on Bragg Scattering From the Ocean Surface , 2012, IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering.

[53]  Alex B. Gershman,et al.  Non-stationary interference cancellation in HF surface wave radar , 2003, 2003 Proceedings of the International Conference on Radar (IEEE Cat. No.03EX695).

[54]  B. Lipa,et al.  Least-squares methods for the extraction of surface currents from CODAR crossed-loop data: Application at ARSLOE , 1983, IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering.

[55]  G. Fabrizio,et al.  Practical problems with covariance matrix estimation for adaptive MTI and space-time adaptive processing for target detection in HF surface wave radars , 2008, 2008 International Radar Symposium.

[56]  A. Kawalec,et al.  Effect of integration time on detection performance of MTI and STAP algorithms in HF radar , 2008, 2008 International Conference on Radar.

[57]  H. C. Chan,et al.  An integrated maritime surveillance system based on high-frequency surface-wave radars. 1. Theoretical background and numerical simulations , 2001 .

[58]  M. Lesturgie.  Use of STAP techniques to enhance the detection of slow targets in shipborne HFSWR , 2003, 2003 Proceedings of the International Conference on Radar (IEEE Cat. No.03EX695).

[59]  W. Ferguson,et al.  Nonlinear deep-water waves: theory and experiment. Part 2. Evolution of a continuous wave train , 1977, Journal of Fluid Mechanics.

[60]  Giuseppe A. Fabrizio,et al.  Stap for Clutter and Interference Cancellation in a Hf Radar System , 2006, 2006 IEEE International Conference on Acoustics Speech and Signal Processing Proceedings.

[61]  M. Longuet-Higgins.  The effect of non-linearities on statistical distributions in the theory of sea waves , 1963, Journal of Fluid Mechanics.

[62]  H. C. Chan,et al.  An integrated maritime surveillance system based on high-frequency surface-wave radars. 2. Operational status and system performance , 2001 .