Analysis of Experimental Data From a Scaled Ocean-Surveillance Radar

To validate various theoretical models used in the design and specification of a proposed satellite-borne, ship-detection, ocean-surveillance radar, an airborne test-bed radar system has been developed and used to acquire experimental data. The major operating and performance parameters of the test-bed radar are either identical to or are scaled to the equivalent parameters of the satellite sensor. The analysis of experimental data acquired with the test-bed radar indicates that the satellite radar system should meet the objective of automatically detecting ship targets with radar cross sections equal to or greater than 200 square meters. The analysis of the experimental data covers a variety of ships, ship aspects, ship lengths, sea states, and grazing angles. All of the ship-target data analyzed resulted in measures of processed-radar-video signal/(clutter plus noise) ratios (S/(C + N)) greater than 16 dB. The same data normalized for a satellite sensor system indicates that the 16 dB S/(C + N) required for automatic detection would be realized for 200-square-meter ship targets. The experimental data confirm that for the 0.016 seconds inter-pulse time period the sea clutter is for practical purposes completely decorrelated.