Target Detection with Adaptive Power Regression Thresholding for HF Radar

High frequency (HF) radars are capable to detect and track targets at extremely long ranges. But the signal environment that includes external noise, different kinds of clutter and interference will significantly limit the detection performance and system capability. This paper considers a new approach to solve the target detection problem in a complex HF radar signal environment. It uses a conventional constant false-alarm-rate (CFAR) detection procedure but the thresholding scheme is based on regression analysis of power spectrum values along range and Doppler cells. The CFAR detection test rule was combined with a local peak determination procedure. The proposed detection scheme has been tested using real HF radar data and gave very promising results