k-Stage signal detection with a constant false alarm rate under parametric ambiguity

k-stage signal detection procedures with a constant false alarm rate (CFAR) are studied under prior parametric ambiguity. Decision rules for k-stage CFAR signal detection are proposed and studied. Functional diagrams of k-stage CFAR detectors are developed for a range-multichannel radar intended for the detection of an incoherent train of radio pulses observed in the presence of uncorrelated Gaussian interference with an unknown variance. The interference power (variance) is estimated with the help of a sliding window consisting of m adjacent range cells. The power loss factors and efficiency factors of the k-stage CFAR detectors are calculated. The efficiency of the multichannel k-stage CFAR detectors is analyzed.