Coherent VI-MLP-CFAR detector for IDEPAR demonstrator (DVB-T passive radar) in ground traffic monitoring

Coherent CFAR (Constant False Alarm Rate) detectors were designed and evaluated in non-homogeneous DVB-T (Digital Video Broadcasting-Terrestrial) passive radar scenarios. Conventional CFAR techniques are usually applied to noncoherent detector that can not be optimal attending to Neyman-Pearson criterion. The capability to approximate function of neural networks (NN) was used to maintain the false alarm rate without a priori knowledge of the optimum detector outputs. In addition, variability index (VI) was used to provide robustness against non-homogeneous interference. The considered detection scheme was evaluated with real passive radar data acquired by IDEPAR demonstrator, a DVB-T passive radar system, in a terrestrial scenario. Results confirm the potentiality of the coherent VI-MLP-CFAR detector as a low-cost solution for traffic monitoring.