Coherent Detection Algorithm for Radar Maneuvering Targets Based on Discrete Polynomial-Phase Transform

Radar detection of maneuvering targets with high velocity and acceleration often results in severely deteriorative performance or even failure. Parameter-search approaches are commonly used to overcome such difficulty, but the substantial computational load involved makes them unable to meet the real-time requirements of practical systems. In this paper, to improve the detection performance for maneuvering targets at no expense of computing resource, we derive a coherent detection algorithm for maneuvering targets based on the discrete polynomial-phase transform. The proposed algorithm simultaneously decouples the displacement and velocity of target and reduces the order of the acceleration-induced quadratic phase in the frequency domain of the pulse compressed echoes. As such, the range and Doppler walks are both compensated without any a priori knowledge. In addition, the impact of the cross terms on the detection of auto-terms is investigated in the multiple targets scenario, and the applicable conditions of the proposed algorithm are given. Using numerical simulation and real-data experiments, we demonstrate the advantages of the proposed algorithm over state-of-the-art methods in terms of integration gain and estimation accuracy.