Elevation estimation for low-angle target based on reflection paths suppression

In the signal processing for metrewave radar, the reflection paths of target echoes can cause severe error in the elevation estimation for the low-angle target tracking. The exact angles of the reflection paths are unknown beforehand, and therefore, the reflection paths can not be suppressed easily. Therefore, in this article, an improved reflection paths suppression approach is presented. A block matrix aggregate is constructed based on the possible angles of the reflection paths. Combined with the beamforming-like processing, a generalized maximum likelihood estimation is derived to optimize the estimation. Moreover, the noise reduction method based on the Toeplitz covariance matrix is used for better performance. This approach is applied to the real data collected by the low-angle tracking radar with 8-channel vertical array. The experiment results show that the reflection effects are reduced and the accuracy of the elevation estimate is improved.