Segmented Radon Fourier Transform for Long-Time Coherent Radars

Coherent pulse integration is a well-known technique for effective target detection with increased output signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Radon Fourier transform (RFT) uses a long-time coherent integration technique for improved target detection in a 3-D search but increases the parameters search time. This article presents a new approach of segmented RFT (SRFT) for fast detection of high-speed targets without significantly degrading the detection performance. SRFT divides the received echo data matrix into an arbitrary number of segments along the slow-time dimension of the data matrix. Each segment is a complete independent data matrix, which can proceed independently and in parallel fashion. This article implements a complete pipeline of radar receiver with SRFT to validate its integration in a radar signal processor. Experiments show that the parameters search time of SRFT is reduced by
${N}_{k}$
times when compared with RFT, where
${N}_{k}$
is the number of segments. There is a negligible degradation of 0.035 dB in SNR when compared with standard RFT for 120 pulses. The difference is further reduced, as the number of pulses is increased.