Comparison of the Detection Performance of an FMCW Coastal Surveillance Radar for V and H Polarizations

The present work supports the use of V-polarization instead of H-polarization under CFAR detection in FMCW coastal surveillance radars due to its statistical advantage. The sea clutter reflectivity, σ
⁰
, is about 3-5 dB less for H-polarization than for V-polarization. However, the sea clutter echoes are spikier for H-polarization than V-polarization for a high resolution radar. It has been suggested that for a high resolution radar V-polarization is to be preferred over H-polarization for a fixed threshold detection below a critical radar height [1]. The new numerical results for the detection performance of an FMCW radar with CFAR detection supporting the above argument will be given in the following sections.