Partially Adaptive STAP using the FRACTA Algorithm

A partially adaptive space-time adaptive processor (STAP) utilizing the recently developed FRACTA algorithm is presented which significantly reduces the high computational complexity and large sample support requirements of fully adaptive STAP. Multi-window post-Doppler dimensionality reduction techniques are employed to transform the data prior to application of the FRACTA algorithm. The FRACTA algorithm is a reiterative censoring (RC) and detection algorithm which has been shown to provide excellent detection performance in nonhomogeneous interference environments. Two multi-window post-Doppler dimensionality reduction techniques are considered: PRI-staggered and adjacent-bin. The partially adaptive FRACTA algorithm is applied to the KASSPER I (knowledge-aided sensor signal processing & expert reasoning) challenge datacube. The pulse repetition interval (PRI)-staggered approach with D=6 filters per Doppler bin is found to provide the best detection performance, outperforming the fully adaptive case while simultaneously reducing the runtime by a factor of ten. Using this implementation, partially adaptive FRACTA detects 197 out of 268 targets with one false alarm. The clairvoyant processor (the covariance matrix for each range cell is known) detects 198 targets with one false alarm. In addition, the partially adaptive FRACTA algorithm is shown to be resilient to jamming, and performs well for reduced sample support situations. When compared with partially adaptive STAP using traditional sliding window processing (SWP), the runtime of partially adaptive FRACTA is 14 times faster, and the detection performance is significantly increased (SWP detects 46 out of 268 targets with one false alarm).