Impact of Measurement Model Mismatch on Nonlinear Track-Before-Detect Performance for Maritime RADAR Surveillance

In this paper, the application of track-before-detect (TkBD) processing against airborne radar surveillance data is examined. The sensitivity of TkBD processing to the choice of clutter model was examined through processing of real and simulated data containing noncoherent radar echo amplitude returns of a small maritime target in sea clutter. The utilization of $K$- and $KA$-distributed clutter models in place of the simpler Rayleigh distribution was examined through analysis of simulated and real data. Significant shortcomings were identified. An alternate empirical approach, clutter event based characterization, is proposed for characterizing and simulating sea clutter based on the identification and grouping of so-called “clutter events.”