Multichannel Sea Clutter Modeling for Spaceborne Early Warning Radar and Clutter Suppression Performance Analysis

In this article, we propose a multichannel sea clutter model in a spaceborne early warning radar system and analyze the influence of the sea clutter motion characteristics on the space-time adaptive processing (STAP) performance. To establish a multichannel sea clutter model, the 3-D Gerstner wave model is applied to construct the sea surface. Then the Pierson–Moskowitz wave spectrum and the stereo wave observation project (SWOP) directional spectrum are combined to describe the amplitude distribution of waves in different frequencies and directions. At the same time, the two-scale model is applied to obtain the specific backscattering coefficients of sea clutter at different time and positions. In addition, breaking waves are added in sea clutter returns with the form of false targets. Finally, the space-time distribution characteristics of sea clutter in a spaceborne multichannel array system and the influences of sea clutter under different wind speeds and directions on STAP performance are analyzed based on the simulation processing results. Processing results of some real-measured radar data are also exhibited to verify the theoretical analyses.