Polarimetric Detection of Targets in Inhomogeneous Clutter

Polarization diversity in radar is useful to detect targets, particularly when Doppler discrimination is not possible. We introduce a new polarimetric radar model that includes the realistic dependence of the clutter reflections on the transmitted signal. We then develop a statistical polarimetric detection test, robust to heavy inhomogeneous clutter. We prove that the detector’s false-alarm rate is invariant to the space and time variabilities of the clutter; hence, it has the constant false-alarm (CFAR) property, while still maintaining a good probability of detection. We demonstrate the improved performance of the proposed detector in comparison with existing detectors using numerical examples and real data.