STAP Performance Analysis Using Different Receiving Antenna Weighting Manners in Space-Based Early Warning Radar Systems

In this paper, the influence of different receiving array element weighting manners on the space-time adaptive processing (STAP) technique is analyzed. Firstly, the element-based echo signal in a space-borne early warning radar (SBEWR) system is established, and then the STAP procedure by utilizing two alternative receiving array element weighting models are introduced. After that, the antenna patterns with respect to two weighting manners are discussed and the target output signal-to-clutter-plus-noise ratio (SCNR) after STAP are evaluated. The numerical results show that the subarray element weighting manner obtains a better STAP performance without channel mismatch compensation while a slightly inferior STAP performance with channel mismatch compensation compared with the whole antenna weighting manner.