Performance of CA-CFAR detectors in nonhomogeneous positive alpha-stable clutter

• Published in: IEEE transactions on aerospace and electronic systems Vol. 51; no. 3; pp. 2027 - 2038
• Main Authors: Aalo, Valentine A., Peppas, Kostas P., Efthymoglou, George
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01-07-2015; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Aircraft components; Clutter; Detectors; Dispersion; Electronic systems; Exact solutions; Mathematical analysis; Mathematical models; Radar clutter; Random variables; Receivers; Statistics
• ISSN: 0018-9251; 1557-9603
• DOI: 10.1109/TAES.2015.140043

This paper studies the performance of a cell-averaging constant false alarm rate (CA-CFAR) receiver that operates in a nonhomogeneous clutter environment with impulsive, heavy-tailed statistics. The clutter distribution is modeled by a positive alpha-stable distribution, which is described by the characteristic exponent α, where 0 <; α <; 1. Analytical expressions for the false alarm and detection probabilities are derived for arbitrary values of α assuming a nonhomogeneous clutter background. The analytical results are validated with computer simulation.