Abstract:

Space-time adaptive processing (STAP) has received much attention in recent 30 years, because it is an effective technology in suppressing the ground clutter whose Doppler spectrum is spread due to the motion of the platform. In the situation of STAP with maneuvering platforms, the Doppler spectrum of the clutter will be broadened further compared with that of the constant velocity platforms, and the Doppler spread is related to the direction of the linear arrays, the positions of the scatters and the number of pulses. Consequently, in maneuvering platform situations, the system performance will be decreased significantly if the conventional STAP method is used directly, especially in the main lobe area. To solve this problem, a data domain-based compensation method which can decrease the additional phase factor due to the acceleration of the moving platform is proposed in this paper. The narrowed down Doppler spectrum of the clutter with the proposed method is shown in the simulation and the improved minimal discernable velocity (MDV) is shown by the improvement factor (IF) curves.