First order sea clutter cross section for bistatic shipborne HFSWR

This paper studies the development on the first order sea clutter cross section for bistatic high frequency surface wave radar (HFSWR). Based on the received first order electric field expression, a closed-form of cross sections is derived to account for the case of receiving antenna array being mounted on the shipborne platform. The uniform linear motion and sway motion components are assumed to be responsible for the observed differences in comparison with the bistatic fixed antenna case. Correspondingly, simulations are conducted to study the sea clutter spectral characteristics for these two cases versus different system parameters and sea state conditions. It is shown numerically that the forward motion component will spread the Bragg lines severely and the influence triggered by the sway motion can be explained as the Bessel function modulation of the ordinary sea clutter spectra. The obtained results have important implications in the application of shipborne HFSWR technology to ocean remote sensing and target detection.