Mitigating the effects of chaff in ballistic missile defense

In this paper, an algorithmic (schema) approach for detecting and tracking targets in highly cluttered environments is presented. The approach is to accurately track the centroid of the chaff cloud using a combination of medium band (MB) and wide band (WB) range resolution radar waveforms. At moderate pulse repetition frequencies (PRFs), differential target velocities (about the centroid of the chaff cloud) are detected and tracked via Doppler banks of transversal filters that are tuned to detect the target velocity differences. Through sensitivity analysis using Matlab models, the theoretical lower bound on detectable differential target velocity as a function of the chaff cloud composition (e.g., clutter cross section, clutter spectral width, number of dipoles, and clutter velocity standard deviation) and radar related parameters (e.g., waveform frequency, bandwidth, integration times, PRFs, and signal-to-clutter ratio) is presented.