TABLE OF CONTENTS An important application of the understanding of sea clutter developed in Chapters 2 4 is the prediction of radar detection performance. While many of the phenomena associated with sea clutter are not understoodin detail in physical terms, empirically derived statistical models do provide us with the means with which we might calculate detection performance and show how observed clutter characteristics can affect radar performance. This modelling of detection performance is the subject of the current chapter. Here we address the end-to-end problem, which takes as its input radar system parameters and yields estimates of detection probability, but postpone the discussion of the maintenance of a constant false alarm rate (CFAR), and the associated losses, until the next chapter. The confirmation that real radar systems do in fact perform in a manner consistent with these calculations is presented in Chapter 10; thus this and the following two chapters now justify, in a practical context, much of the analysis presented in the rest of the book.
We consider just one system in detail; an airborne, scanning, sea surface surveil-lance radar, which operates at I-Band (9 10 GHz), is non-coherent, uses frequency agility and has pulse-to-pulse and scan-to-scan integration. The problem is that of detecting small, point sea-surface targets. Having worked through and understood this example, the reader should be well placed to carry out similar analyses of other types of radar. A few pointers towards how this may be done are given towards the end of the chapter.
We cannot emphasise too...
