Noncoherent Detector Threshold Determination in Correlated Pareto Distributed Clutter

Setting thresholds for sliding window noncoherent detection processes is extremely difficult in the presence of a correlated clutter range profile. This is certainly the case when attempting to apply a trimmed sum of order statistics as the measurement of the clutter level. In order to facilitate this, a new expression for the threshold of such a detector is derived, which is a function of probabilities of two associated random variables. This then permits a Monte Carlo scheme to be applied to determine thresholds. In the case of real data, if a clutter map is assumed to be an accurate representation of the radar operating environment, then one can avoid estimating correlations in the process of determining thresholds. Examples of this will be provided to demonstrate the utility of the proposed scheme.