Detector of distributed target based on hybrid cubic phase function

In high resolution radar systems, the return signals can be considered as a multiple linear frequency modulation (LFM) signal with small frequency rate (FR). In this paper, we propose a hybrid cubic phase function (HCPF) to transform a signal from the time domain into the FR domain. The HCPF takes the advantages of the integrated cubic phase function (ICPF) and product cubic phase function (PCPF) in analyzing the LFM signal. Using the HCPF, the return signal is concentrated in a low FR region, while the Gaussian noise spreads over the entire FR region. From this, we further propose a distributed target detector. This detector uses a single return signal and thus has the ability to detect the maneuvering target with a very high velocity. Finally, the proposed detector is evaluated by recorded radar data. Experimental results show that the proposed detector outperforms its competitors.