Statistical Characteristics Analysis based on a Measured Ku-band Sea Clutter Dataset

The complex characteristics of sea clutter affect the performance of sea surface target detectors. Particularly, the statistical properties constrain the development of adaptive detectors. However, the properties of sea clutter are influenced by complex factors, which lead to different characteristics across different radar working frequency bands and sea conditions. This paper mainly analyzes the amplitude characteristics and spatial-temporal correlations of sea clutter based on the real measured dataset. Experimental Ku-band radar sea clutter results show that the empirical probability density function (PDF) is accurately fitted by the Generalized Pareto intensity distribution. Moreover, the decorrelation time of Ku-band measured data is about 1~3ms which is slightly less than that of the X-band radar sea clutter. The results presented in this article serve as a theoretical reference for the development of future target detection methods.