Real-time STAP hardware demonstrator for airborne radar applications

This paper describes work carried out at QinetiQ to demonstrate real-time operation of space-time adaptive processing (RTSTAP) for airborne phased array radar, in a laboratory environment. RTSTAP processing is performed using field programmable gate array (FPGA) hardware and controlled via a MATLABcopy graphical user interface. The FPGA hardware is connected to the PACER (phased array concepts evaluation rig) antenna. The current realisation of the RTSTAP system employs 16 subarrays and 2 taps, i.e. 32 adaptive channels. It is tested against a number of frequency controlled sources placed in the field of view of the antenna to emulate an airborne environment containing clutter and a target.