Application of the Radon transform to detect small-targets in sea clutter

The authors present a novel and heuristic approach for the detection of low radar cross-section targets in high-resolution sea clutter. The proposed technique is based on the application of the Radon transform to range - time matrices formed by column-wise storage of consecutive range profiles. The objective of this paper is 2-fold: to analyse the effect of the transform on real high-resolution sea clutter and to describe a detection scheme based on the insight obtained. The proposed technique emulates the behaviour of traditional motion target detection algorithms without the need for reliable Doppler information. It also constitutes a powerful non-coherent integration strategy of the target's energy along its specific path on the range - time plot. The performance of the detection technique has been tested against real high-resolution sea clutter data, acquired at the south coast of Spain with an in-house developed continuous wave linear frequency modulated millimetre-wave radar system. Monte Carlo simulations show a significant improvement over the conventional cell averaging constant false alarm rate schemes.