Sparse Cell Search Method for Centralized Target Detection in Multistatic Radar

The cell search problem in centralized target detection based on spatial resolution cell (SRC) is investigated. In centralized target detection, the SRC is utilized to register observation data from different radar nodes. Subsequently, each SRC within the common surveillance region is detected to determine the presence of a target. This process is referred to as cell search. However, traversal detection of all SRCs causes great computational complexity, making it challenging to apply in practice. A sparse cell search method is proposed to solve the problem. Data registration based on SRCs may result in adjacent SRCs sharing the same signal response of a radar node's range resolution cell. This symbiosis effect causes false alarms in the SRCs without a target. Such false alarm cells are referred to as symbiosis cells. The sparse cell search method can utilize the spatial dependency between the target and symbiosis cells to achieve rapid target search. The proposed method significantly reduces the computational complexity of the cell search, improves the detection efficiency for the target, and has high engineering application value. Comparative experiments with the traversal search method further validate the effectiveness of the proposed method.