Airborne Pulse Doppler Radar Ground Clutter Measurement And Analysis

The ground clutter is the main factor of affecting the performance of the airborne radar.It's a important task how to restrain the ground clutter to increase signal-to-clutter ratio for airborne radar. The theoretic analysis and acquisition methods have been introduced in this paper. Then the theoretic data were obtained by computer-aided simulation and the true data were collected from a experimental radar. Through the combination of the two aspects, the characteristics of the clutter were analyzed and concluded, and the differences between the theoretic data and the true data were also indicated. Based on the fact, the processing methods of the main-beam cluter, the clutter mirror and the sidelobe clutter were put forward. The processing of sidelobe clutter is so crucial, we described it in detail. All the methods were proved effective to restrain the ground clutter by flight-test, and the signal-to-clutter ratio loss was less. As a result, the ability of detecting targets in the ground clutter was improved effectively, and the integrated performances of radar were fully enhanced.