Modeling the Statistics of Microwave Radar Sea Clutter

One of the key requirements of a radar system is to detect targets against the background interference. This can be a challenging problem in the maritime domain when the sea moves in a complex manner and the characteristics are time-varying or nonstationary. Understanding the characteristics of sea clutter is therefore essential in developing effective and robust detection schemes. The first part of this tutorial provides details of the relevant statistical models from the literature which are typically used to characterize the sea clutter. Using these models enables us to represent clutter in different environments that may be difficult to observe in trials and to predict the performance of radars over a range of different conditions with more confidence. Future radar systems may well comprise transmitters and receivers which are separated by some distance. Analysis of bistatic sea clutter is therefore covered in the second part of this paper with a focus on how the statistics vary with different bistatic angles. The final part then looks at the application of radar models for clutter simulation and performance prediction for both coherent and non-coherent detection schemes.