TABLE OF CONTENTS In this chapter we consider simulation techniques that enable us to study various aspects of radar performance, in circumstances where an analytic attack may not be possible, or particularly informative. To complement the analytic clutter modelling discussed in Chapter 4, we will develop methods for the numerical simulation of unwanted radar returns. The clutter models in Chapter 4 are exclusively statistical; this prejudice is still evident in our choice of simulation methods. In essence, we address the problem of generating correlated random numbers with prescribed one and two point statistics (i.e. pdf and correlation function) that incorporate the physical insights developed in Chapters 2 4.
Significant progress can be made in the simulation of Gaussian processes with specified correlation properties; these provide a simple but useful simulation tool. The controlled generation of correlated non-Gaussian processes is more difficult. Fortunately our principal interest is in simulating clutter, for which the compound model has proved to be very effective; the Gaussian simulation techniques allow us to realise the speckle component without too much difficulty. The main difficulty we encounter is in the simulation of the correlated variation in the local power component. Useful progress can be made towards the solution of this problem, adopting a fairly pragmatic approach based on the non-linear transformation of a Gaussian process to one with gamma statistics. The resulting process can be analysed in sufficient detail for the correlation of the output gamma process to be related directly to the more readily controlled correlation of the...
