AR-based growler detection in sea clutter

A technique that performs better than conventional, noncoherent marine radars in detecting small pieces of glacial ice (growlers) in the sea is reported. A coherent detector based on an autoregressive (AR) parameterization of received radar echoes that distinguishes growler returns from the background sea clutter returns is considered. A conventional noncoherent detector is also evaluated as a basis for comparison. The AR-based detector is shown to offer significant improvements in detecting growlers. The results reported are based on real X-band radar data.<>