SPACE-TIME ADAPTIVE PROCESSING FOR AIRBORNE RADAR WITH VARIOUS ARRAY ORIENTATIONS

Space-time adaptive processing (STAP) is a crucial technique for the n ew generation airborne radar with high air-to-ground performance. The authors study this technique applied to airborne early warning (AEW) r adars with various array orientations, which include the sideways look ing array radar (SLAR) and non-sideways looking array radar. First, th e ground clutter is characterised by showing the angular-Doppler spect ra and Doppler-range relation for various array orientations. Secondly , the impact of various array configurations and pulse repetition freq uencies (PRFs) on the STAP performance by the use of a multiple Dopple r channels joint adaptive processing (M-CAP) approach is analysed. Thi rdly, a 3-Doppler-channel processing scheme, in coordination with the various PRF modes, is recommended to solve the STAP problem for practi cal AEW radars with various array orientations. Finally, some examples are given by simulation to show the performances of the 3-Doppler-cha nnel processing scheme for various cases of interest and to validate t he theoretical analysis.