Radar Clutter Cancellation Using Multitaper Methods

Recently, Thomson's multitaper methods for spectral estimation have been formulated by Karnik et al. in terms of projections onto subspaces that characterize frequency subbands. In this paper, this formulation is first exploited to create orthogonal projections for precisely excising signals that appear in specific frequency sub-bands. The approach is then extended to create multitaper/subspace methods for delay processing in range-only radar. These new methods precisely characterize, and cancel, signals occurring in specific delay intervals. The results in this paper, besides being useful in their own right, provide a stepping stone toward the ultimate goal of developing multitaper/subspace characterizations of regions in delay-Doppler space.