A Weather Radar Ground Clutter Suppression Method Using Adaptive Coherent Pulse Integration

Ground clutter poses a significant challenge to the accuracy of weather radar products, especially for aeroecology monitoring. Operational weather radar commonly employs a fixed coherent pulse integration (CPI) for clutter suppression. However, the phenomenon of strong clutter spanning multiple CPIs can result in severe spectral leakage. The independent implementation of clutter suppression within each CPI fails to fully utilize clutter data, significantly compromising clutter suppression effectiveness. Therefore, we propose an adaptive coherent pulse integration (ACPI) method based on the amplitude-phase characteristics of echoes in azimuth. Clutter and nonclutter regions are determined firstly based on the stability of the echo phase in azimuth. Then, the clutter region is further subdivided using phase discontinuities and amplitude notches between different clutter areas. Finally, an appropriate CPI can be assigned to each strong clutter instance. The effectiveness and the practicality of the ACPI are verified through the simulations and measured data from Chinese operational weather radar.