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Published in IET Radar, Sonar and Navigation

Received on 30th July 2008
Revised on 16th October 2008
doi: 10.1049/iet-rsn:20080123

ISSN 1751-8784

Application of the Radon transform to

detect small-targets in sea clutter
J. Carretero-Moya J. Gismero-Menoyo A. Asensio-López
Á. Blanco-del-Campo
Departamento de Señales, Sistemas y Radiocomunicaciones, Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros de Telecomunicación,
Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Ciudad Universitaria, s/n 28040 Madrid, Spain
E-mail: jcarretero@gmr.ssr.upm.es

Abstract: The authors present a novel and heuristic approach for the detection of low radar cross-section targets
in high-resolution sea clutter. The proposed technique is based on the application of the Radon transform to
range–time matrices formed by column-wise storage of consecutive range profiles. The objective of this paper
is 2-fold: to analyse the effect of the transform on real high-resolution sea clutter and to describe a detection
scheme based on the insight obtained. The proposed technique emulates the behaviour of traditional motion
target detection algorithms without the need for reliable Doppler information. It also constitutes a powerful
non-coherent integration strategy of the target’s energy along its specific path on the range – time plot. The
performance of the detection technique has been tested against real high-resolution sea clutter data, acquired
at the south coast of Spain with an in-house developed continuous wave linear frequency modulated
millimetre-wave radar system. Monte Carlo simulations show a significant improvement over the conventional
cell averaging constant false alarm rate schemes.

1 Introduction The roughness of sea surface determines the sea clutter

Low radar cross-section (RCS) target detection in sea clutter
is a challenging problem for maritime radars. Homeland
security related applications, such as border control, coastal
surveillance or drug enforcement, demand new capabilities
that are beyond the possibilities of conventional low range
resolution systems. High-resolution maritime radars should
address, at least in part, those needs.
The average RCS of high-resolution sea clutter is low, and
consequently the detection of small targets should be
possible. However, it is a well-established fact that as the
area of the resolution cell decreases, the statistical properties
of sea clutter change from being Gaussian and uncorrelated
to being heavily tailed and correlated [1]. This behaviour is
even more pronounced for low grazing angles. Recently,
significant research efforts have been devoted to both the
theoretical modelling of sea backscatter [2– 4] and
statistical analysis of the recorded high-resolution sea
clutter data [5– 9].
properties. It is often assumed that this roughness can be
modelled by using two fundamental types of waves:
gravity and capillary waves. Wavelength is the main
difference between the two fundamental types of waves,
metres for gravity waves but centimetres or less for
capillary waves. Therefore two different spatial scales
characterise the sea surface: a microstructure formed by
capillary waves and a macrostructure consequence of long-
wavelength gravity waves [3]. The two-scale nature of sea
surface leads naturally to the use of a two-component
model for radar sea backscatter. Statistical analyses of
experimental data and physical arguments have shown that
high-resolution sea clutter can be modelled as a
compound-Gaussian process [1, 3, 10]. It can be shown
that under certain conditions, compound-Gaussian
processes degenerate into mathematically tractable
spherically invariant random processes (SIRPs) [11]. This
theoretical framework is compatible with the earlier
reports of the suitability of bi-parametrical distributions,
such as the K-distribution [12], to the task of fitting

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experimental sea clutter amplitude probability density
functions (PDFs) [5 – 9].
Conventional radar detection chains were usually designed
to detect targets embedded in Gaussian-distributed and
uncorrelated noise backgrounds. Consequently, there is
unacceptable performance degradation when used against
high-resolution sea clutter [13]. For example, it is known
that the behaviour of conventional cell averaging constant
false alarm rate (CA-CFAR) is degraded by noise processes
with such long-tailed amplitude PDFs, and both temporal
and spatial non-negligible correlations.
Recently, much effort has been devoted to the definition of
detection schemes robust against compound-Gaussian noise
[14 – 16]. Although the reported performance of some of
them is good [17], the detection of small targets in sea
clutter is not yet a closed problem. In this paper, a Radon
transform based approach for the detection of small targets
in sea clutter is proposed and its performance is tested
against real sea clutter data.
Experimental low grazing angle sea clutter time series were
recorded at the south coast of Spain with an in-house
developed high-resolution continuous wave linear frequency
modulated (CWLFM) radar demonstrator [18]. The main
characteristics of the radar system are detailed in Table 1.
The radar’s maximum transmitted bandwidth was 2 GHz
and thus a range resolution better than 10 cm was achieved.
The data set comprises measurements at different
configurations, with varying azimuth angles, transmitted
waveform characteristics, and range. For each configuration,
three consecutive recordings were performed with fixed
HH polarisation. The process was repeated for 3 days, for
which sea state was ground-truthed to be between 3 and 4
in the Beaufort scale (local weather station data, as no
oceanographic buoy data were available).
Despite the availability of sea clutter recordings at three
different range resolutions, this work is mainly based on
the results for the 1 GHz bandwidth configuration, at a
fixed waveform repetition rate of 1 kHz. This corresponds
to a range resolution of around 15 cm. Nevertheless, results
hold also for the 2 GHz transmitted bandwidth.
Table 1 Radar characteristics
Radar characteristics
Type Continuous wave linear
frequency modulated
Tx. frequency 28– 30 GHz
Bandwidth 2 GHz (Max.)
Waveform repetition 3000 Hz (Max.)
frequency
Tx. power 30 dBm
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Statistical analysis was carried out with the data used for
this research. A good agreement was found with the
compound-Gaussian model following the statistical analysis
techniques used in earlier publications [5, 7]. Specifically,
both the experimental amplitude PDF and the measured
correlation properties are compatible with the compound
model. Among the most commonly used bi-parametric
PDFs, the best fit is obtained by the generalised
K-distribution with log-normal texture, and the existence
of the two components, the so-called speckle and texture,
has also been verified. The complete statistical analysis of
the available data sets is the topic of a future publication.
The remainder of the paper is organised as follows. Section
2 briefly reviews the Radon transform, some of its properties
and implementation issues. Section 3 begins with a description
of the proposed detection technique, highlighting the effect
of the Radon transform on real sea clutter data. Afterwards,
two different automatic detection schemes are detailed.
Section 3 is an extension of [19]. An evaluation of the
performance of the proposed detection schemes is included
in Section 4. Finally, conclusions are drawn in Section 5.
2 Radon transform
The Radon transform of a continuous two-dimensional
function g(x,y) can be defined as [20]
ðð
R(r, u) ¼ g(x, y)d(r  x cos u  y sin u)
D
where D is the image plane, d is the Dirac function, g(x, y) is
the intensity at position (x, y), and (r, u) are the parameters of
the integration line. A better understanding of the transform
can be obtained by an alternative representation that
highlights the integration process of image values
ð þ1
R(r, u) ¼ g ðr cos u  s sin u, r sin u þ s cos uÞds
1
where the s-axis lies along the integration line defined by
(r, u), and each point in the Radon space is therefore the
sum of image values along that specific path.
The most outstanding and well-known application of the
Radon transform is in the field of medical imaging,
providing the theoretical principles of computerised
tomography. However, it has been extensively used for
pattern recognition, as it is a particularly well-suited
technique for line-detection tasks. It can be easily shown
that for each line feature in the image domain, there will be
an associated peak in the Radon space. This fact is
exploited by Radon transform based line-detection
algorithms.
Only certain functions can be analytically Radon
transformed and therefore several discrete approximations
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of the transform have been developed. The discretisation

process is straightforward. The four variables are sampled
linearly and a sum approximation of the integral is used
[20, 21]. Additionally, some sort of interpolation is
implemented to obtain values for the required points in
between the sampling grid of the original image. Usually, a
computationally efficient nearest-neighbour interpolation is
enough for most of the applications. Nevertheless, direct
evaluation of the direct discrete Radon transform is
computationally intensive, and this fact has motivated the
development of several optimised algorithms. Most fast
Radon transform implementations are based on frequency
domain algorithms and therefore it is possible to take
advantage of the existing real-time fast Fourier transform
(FFT) structures [22 – 24]. Another approach is to develop
approximations of the Radon transform equation that
allow for fast parallel architectures [25, 26]. Consequently,
real-time Radon transform based systems such as the
detection scheme proposed in this paper are technologically
feasible.

3 Small-target detection based

on the Radon transform
High-resolution range – time images can be created by
column-wise storage of a number of successive range
profiles. Range– time images of experimental sea clutter
data clearly show line-like features associated with wave-
crests (Fig. 1a). Line-like features on the original range –
time domain produce peaks on the Radon domain at the
horizontal axis coordinate associated with the angle (slant)
of the feature. The Radon transform of Fig. 1a is shown in
Fig. 1b. Each peak in Fig. 1b clearly corresponds to a line-
like feature (wave-crest) in Fig. 1a. If the high-resolution
radar system is working on spotlight mode (for precise Figure 1 Experimental sea clutter data
determination of a target’s range prior to inverse synthetic a Range – time matrix
aperture radar (ISAR) processing) or in a slow scanning b Radon transform
operation (with a long enough coherent processing
interval), targets will also become lines on the range–time
image. The target’s radial velocity determines the angle account for the target’s change of range bin. For high-
(slant) of its associated line-like feature on the range– time resolution radars and long integration times, even very slow
image. Performing the detection on the Radon domain has targets will move across range bin boundaries.
three main advantages:
Radar systems have traditionally used Doppler spectrum
1. The integration process smoothens out noise: the signal- information to detect moving targets in severe clutter
to-noise ratio is greater in the transform domain than in the environments. This is the idea behind moving target
original image. detection (MTD) schemes. This approach is no longer
valid for high centre-frequency radar systems with Doppler
2. An estimation of the radial velocity of the line-like ambiguity. In the experimental set-up used for this
features (wave-crests or targets) is obtained. research, the non-ambiguous Doppler frequency range is
fm =2, fm =2 , where fm is the frequency of the modulating
3. A non-coherent integration along the target’s exact path waveform. From the nominal fm value of 1 kHz and taking
across the range– time plane is performed. into account the well-known relationship between radial
speed and Doppler frequency: fd ¼ 2nr/l, it follows that
The last point must be highlighted; a Radon transform the estimation of the target’s radial speed will be highly
based detection scheme efficiently uses the target’s available ambiguous. As a result, targets with different radial speeds
energy. Conventional non-coherent integration does not can result in the same spectral bin. This fact and the

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intrinsic wide spectrum of sea clutter severely degrade the
performance of Doppler-based MTD techniques.
Detailed visual inspection of Fig. 1a shows that wave-
crests have low radial speeds (slope of the line-like features
on the range – time plot). Targets having different radial
speeds can be easily simulated and inserted into real sea
clutter data backgrounds. Certain speed ranges will give
range– time plots with different slopes than wave-crests.
The detection scheme based on the Radon transform will
exploit this difference to avoid false alarms from target-like
wave-crest radar returns.
The preceding discussion constitutes a heuristic
motivation for the use of the Radon transform for the
detection of targets in sea clutter. The idea is further
supported by previous and successful applications of this
transform in the fields of radar signal processing, computer
vision and pattern recognition. The Radon transform based
track-before-detect system described in [27] or the ship
wake detection systems proposed in [28 – 30] are good
examples that clearly demonstrate the potential of this
approach for the detection of linear structures in noise.
Moreover, it can be shown from a detection theory point of
view that the optimal detector of straight patterns in noise-
corrupted images is based on the Radon transform [31].
Therefore there is a statistical justification for the use of the
transform in line-like feature-detection problems that goes
beyond the intuition prompted by the analysis of the
available experimental sea clutter data sets.
3.1 Radon transform-based basic
detection scheme
Fig. 2 shows the block diagram of a basic version of the
proposed detection system. Consecutive range profiles are
stored column-wise to form a range–time matrix. A direct
discrete Radon transform with nearest-neighbour
interpolation is applied to the range– time image. A first
threshold is then used to detect peaks on the Radon
transformed image. This first threshold is calculated as
T1 ¼ meanðRðr, uÞÞ þ K1  stdðRðr, uÞÞ
and applied
   
R ri , uj , T1 ) R ri , uj ¼ 0
Figure 2 Radon transform based detection block diagram
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where K1 is a parameter of the detection chain and mean
(R(r, u)) and std (R(r, u)) are the global mean and standard
deviation of the Radon transformed range–time matrix. The
chosen expression for T1 is a simple outlier detection
technique [32]. The value for K1 is experimentally chosen:
the peaks associated with wave-crests should be above T1 , as
they are used in the following steps of the detection chain.
After the application of the first threshold, each wave-crest
(or target) has an associated cluster of points. Each cluster of
first threshold crossings is a unique ‘event’. There are many
different clustering techniques in the image processing
literature. The proposed detection chain looks for
‘8-connected’ points in the thresholded Radon image using
a connected component labelling algorithm [33]. After the
clustering step, it is possible to calculate statistical properties
of the points of each event. The calculated statistical
properties should make possible the discrimination between
the two kinds of events: wave-crests and targets. The
proposed detector labels each event with two values:
1. The maximum value of the Radon transform of the points
of each event.
2. The u coordinate at which the maximum occurs.
The output of the clustering block is a list of events for the
current range – time scene. The final detection is performed
in an amplitude against u coordinate space. The decision
boundary can be set taking into account the following
considerations:
1. Targets with radial speeds (u coordinates) different from the
average of wave-crests should be detected regardless of their
ratio target amplitude to wave-crest peak amplitude. This
should allow for the detection of small targets below sea clutter.
2. Targets with u coordinates similar to those of wave-crest
events will be detected just if their ‘amplitude to wave-crest
peak amplitude ratio’ is high enough.
3.2 Effect on experimental sea clutter data
The strategy explained in the previous section can be
simulated by inserting synthetic low-amplitude targets,
with different speeds, into the available real sea clutter data
sets. Fig. 3a shows a representative example of a scene to
be processed. 256 range profiles are stored as a range–time
matrix. There are 256 range bins in each range profile with
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a range resolution of 0.16 m. The fm of the radar is 1 kHz and
therefore the integration time is 256 ms. The following
equation can be used to calculate u as a function of the
radial speed of the synthetic target:
 
1 Vr  0:5144
u ¼ 90 + tan
fm  Dr
where Vr is the radial speed (knots), fm is the frequency (Hz)
of the modulating waveform of the CWLFM radar system
and Dr is the range resolution (m).
The maximum expected speed of targets in a specific
maritime surveillance environment can be set. 50 knots is a
reasonable value, which corresponds to an angle of +98
around 908 on the range – time plot. A horizontal line in
the range – time plot is a static target (u ¼ 908). It is not
necessary to calculate all of the projection angles of the
Figure 3 Sea clutter and synthetic targets scene
a Range – time matrix. Target A: þ15 knots. Target B: þ50 knots
b Radon transform. Targets encircled
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Radon transform. The limited dynamics of targets can be
exploited to bound the required u interval: most angles
have no physical meaning for maritime surveillance radars.
This fact reduces the computational requirements of the
proposed techniques making real-time implementations
possible. A carefully chosen step for u can also minimise
the computational load of the Radon transform block.
In the scene shown in Fig. 3a, two synthetic targets have
been inserted. Their simulated speeds are þ15 and þ50
knots. It is difficult to detect them by visual inspection
because their amplitude is below sea clutter wave-crests.
Both targets are easily identified in the Radon transformed
image (Fig. 3b). The output of the basic detection scheme
is shown in Fig. 4a, in which events extracted from the
scene are plotted in an amplitude against angle graph. Both
targets could be easily detected if an appropriate detection
mask on the amplitude against u coordinate space is used.
Figure 4 Detection scheme output
a Amplitude against angle plot for the events extracted from sea
clutter plus targets scene
b Wave-crest events for complete data set and example detection
mask
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The angular (u coordinate) dispersion of wave-crest events
is critical for the performance of the technique. This has been
checked by applying the proposed detection chain to several
experimental sea clutter data sets, each one consisting of
20 000 range profiles with 512 range bins. This gives 156
independent 256  256 scenes per data set. Fig. 4b shows
all the events extracted from several data sets and plotted in
the same amplitude against u coordinate graph. Most of
the events are located in a small angular interval not exactly
centred at 908 (zero radial velocity). Moreover, high
amplitude events are concentrated in a single u coordinate
bin. Both facts are a consequence of the non-zero average
speed of wave-crests and their low speed dispersion. A
detection mask such as the one shown in Fig. 4b can be
used to set a false alarm rate while maximising the
probability of detection for each u coordinate (radial speed).
The cloud of events at the bottom of Fig. 4b is the main
limitation of the basic detection chain. Those events are
artefacts of the basic detection algorithm. The intersection
of the side lobes of nearby peaks in the Radon space
produces spurious events, characterised by low amplitudes
but extreme angular coordinates. As a consequence, the
threshold of the detection mask for targets with radial
speeds very different from the average of wave-crests must
be increased. Consequently, the probability of detection
decreases for high radial speeds for which the specifications
of the system demanded a good performance. It is possible
to partially counteract this behaviour by lowering the
parameter of the first threshold (K1). For low K1 values,
side lobes are clustered together with the corresponding
main peak and the number of artefacts falls. For a specific
false alarm rate, this should improve the detection
probability. However, lowering K1 has a drawback. The
detection probability for low amplitude targets will
decrease, as they will be clustered together with wave-crest
peaks close in the Radon space. Low K1 values will not
discriminate between low-amplitude targets and nearby
wave-crests. The event with the highest amplitude will be
detected. Fig. 5 shows an experimental example of this
behaviour. Threshold 1 will assign different events for each
peak (main peak and side lobe) and an artefact will be
produced. Threshold 2 will generate a single event
associated with peak number 2. Consequently, the number
of artefacts decreases. The same figure can be used to
analyse the drawback of lowering K1 by considering that
both peaks are the Radon space counterparts of two targets
or of a target and a nearby wave-crest. Threshold 2 makes
the detection of very low amplitude targets possible, but
provided that they are not located near a stronger event.
For the situation depicted in Fig. 5, threshold 2 (a lower
value for K1) will produce a single event associated with
peak number 2, and the target (peak 1) will not be detected.
Despite the limitation caused by the artefacts, the
performance of this basic Radon transform based detection
chain outperforms the conventional CA-CFAR algorithms
at an affordable computational cost (as shown in Section 4).
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Figure 5 Effect of the first threshold
The following section introduces a novel technique for the
improvement of Radon transform based line-like feature
detection systems that is suitable for real-time
implementation.
3.3 Computationally efficient peak-shape
analysis technique
To improve the basic Radon transform detector, it is
important to stress the main requirement for the proposed
system: to detect low RCS targets travelling at speeds
different from the wave-crest average. This aim implies
that the lower threshold of the detection mask should be
set to the lowest possible value for the required false alarm
rate. The cloud of artefacts generated by the basic detection
scheme should be eliminated.
The improvement of the basic detection system involves
solving a classification problem in which it is necessary to
reject artefacts without affecting targets or wave-crests. An
analysis of the r profile around each relative maximum of
the Radon space shows differences between the two classes
of the classification problem: the target/wave-crest class
and the artefact class. Fig. 6 shows the r profile of peaks
for an experimental sea clutter scene with four low-
amplitude simulated targets (SCR of 5 dB). Each profile
has been normalised and is a representative example of its
class. Figs. 6a and 6b correspond, respectively, to targets
and wave-crests. Fig. 6c shows r profiles for artefacts.
Visual inspection of Fig. 6 demonstrates that the result of a
suitable analysis of the r profile should make the
discrimination between the two classes possible, minimising
the incidence of artefacts in the Radon transform based
detection system. This discrimination potential is not
found by an equivalent inspection of the u profile. It is
important to highlight the low SCR of the simulated
targets shown in Fig. 6a. The discrimination between both
classes is possible even for low SCRs.
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Figure 6 Normalised r profiles
a Targets
b Wave-crests
c Artefacts
A real-time implementation of the Radon transform based
detection system should exploit the peak-shape difference at a
low computational cost. Previous works have mainly used the
standard deviation of the profile [29] or a continuous wavelet
transform of it for this purpose [28]. In this work, several
different parameters from the r profile have been
calculated. Among these features, it is necessary to choose
the one that provides the most discriminatory information
(class separability). Additionally, the parameters have been
calculated after the application of two different profile
normalisation techniques (energy and maximum value
normalisations). The calculated features are:
† Standard deviation
† Kurtosis
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† Skewness
† Event amplitude/minimum value of profile
† Average value of profile
† Maximum of the absolute value of the differentiated
profile
Energy normalisation has a negative impact on the
discrimination potential of the parameters and therefore
the maximum value normalisation strategy has been used.
Fig. 7a shows that the parameter standard deviation,
maximum/minimum ratio, skewness and kurtosis are not
useful for the discrimination between targets/wave-crests
and artefacts. Our result for the standard deviation is in
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clear contrast with the earlier works, which relied on this
parameter for artefact rejection [29]. The parameter that
provides the best class discrimination potential is the slope
of the peak, which can be approximated by the difference
between consecutive profile samples. Fig. 7b demonstrates
that if the chosen feature is the maximum of the absolute
value of the differentiated normalised profile, the
discrimination between the two classes is possible. The
next section describes a modified Radon transform based
small target detection system that includes a profile
analysis processing block.
3.4 Radon transform based detection
system using profile analysis
Fig. 8 shows the proposed Radon transform based detection
system. Two processing blocks have been added to reduce the
effect of artefacts on the performance of the technique. The

Figure 7 Feature selection

a Standard deviation, skewness, kurtosis and maximum/minimum ratio. Dots: events, cross: targets, circles: wave-crests
b Selected feature. Dots: events, cross: targets, circles: wave-crests

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Figure 8 Block diagram of the Radon transform based detection system using profile analysis
first block performs morphological operations in the Radon
space after the application of the first threshold.
Morphologic erosion is applied followed by a dilation using
an appropriate structuring element [32]. This operation is a
morphological opening and eliminates structures from the
thresholded Radon space with dimensions smaller than the
structuring element. The size and shape of the element has
been chosen to mimic the Radon space footprint of a low-
amplitude target. Clusters of first threshold crossings
smaller than the defined structuring element are artefacts
and therefore removed. Experimental tests have determined
that a 3 pixel wide line in the u direction is an appropriate
choice for the structuring element of the morphological
processing block. This block prevents the clustering
algorithm from generating events for certain artefacts and
reduces the computational load of the profile analysis block.
The profile analysis block processes the event list produced
by the clustering algorithm. For each event, a profile in the r
coordinate is extracted across its maximum value. The profile
is limited to a symmetrical neighbourhood around the peak
value, normalised, and the feature described in the previous
section is calculated. Each event is labelled with a feature
vector defined as
 guard and reference cells (Nr).
xi ¼ Ai , ui , fi
where Ai is the maximum amplitude of the event, ui is the
angular coordinate of the peak and fi is the maximum of
the absolute value of the normalised profile differentiated.
The detection step can take place in a feature space defined
by vectors xi . A visual inspection of Fig. 7b suggests a more
convenient approach based on the application of a
threshold K2 to fi . Most artefacts can be rejected by setting
a value between 0.4 and 0.6 for this threshold. The analysis
of several different experimental sea clutter data sets has
demonstrated that a value of K2 ¼ 0.55 is a good choice.
With the two new processing blocks, it is possible to lower
the detection mask for the same false alarm rate when
compared with the basic detection scheme, thus improving
the performance of the detection technique. Monte Carlo
simulations of the proposed detection system are included
in the following section.
4 Results
The availability of experimental sea clutter data sets has
allowed a realistic performance evaluation of the Radon
transform based detection techniques. Monte Carlo
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simulations have been performed for a fixed probability of
false alarm of 0.001 (Fig. 9). Fig. 9a shows the probability of
detection as a function of signal-to-clutter ratio. One
thousand realisations of random speed targets have been
used to estimate each point of the curve. The simulation
assumes constant velocity targets. In a real maritime
surveillance scenario, the Radon transform will provide a
first-order approximation to the target trajectory in the
range– time representation. The location of peaks in the
Radon space is going to be related to the first-order
approximated and time-averaged dynamical behaviour of the
target. This is the approach of previous works such as [27].
The consequence of the constant velocity assumption during
the dwell time is a slight uncertainty in the estimated
dynamics that can be neglected for detection purposes.
For comparison, Fig. 9a also shows the performance of
conventional CA-CFAR processors:
1. Square law detector followed by a CA-CFAR. Two guard
cells and a variable number of reference cells (Nr).
2. Square law detector followed by non-coherent integration
of the whole scene and a CA-CFAR. Variable number of
For all the simulated processing chains, a conventional
methodology in radar performance analysis has been used:
1. Set the scale factor (CA-CFARs) or detection mask
(Radon-based detectors) by Monte Carlo simulation of
entire data sets corresponding to consecutive data
acquisitions. Because of the amount of data available, a
fairly high probability of false alarm has been used (0.001).
2. With the experimentally chosen scale factor or detection
mask, perform the Monte Carlo simulation of the
probability of detection for each signal-to-clutter ratio.
The main result is an improvement of almost 8 dB when
compared with the conventional CA-CFAR schemes. The
previously discussed effect of the chosen value for the first
threshold (K1) can also be appreciated in Fig. 9a. Low
values for this parameter improve the detection capabilities
of the system for low SCR targets at a cost of a slight
performance degradation for average SCR targets. Fig. 9a
also includes a comparison with non-coherent integration
followed by a CA-CFAR. Two curves are shown for this
case, the INT-CA-CFAR performance against a static
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Figure 9 Monte Carlo simulation of the proposed detectors
a Probability of detection against signal-to-clutter ratio
b Probability of detection against radial speed for a 10 dB target
target (the best case for this detector) and against a þ5 knot
target. The strong performance degradation of the INT-CA-
CFAR against moving targets, a consequence of range cell
migration, is clearly demonstrated by the þ5 knot curve.
The proposed Radon transform based scheme can be
regarded as a range alignment process before a non-
coherent integration and therefore is inherently robust
against range cell migration. This is one of the reasons for
the improvement over the INT-CA-CFAR that is shown
in Fig. 9a.
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The main requirement for the proposed detection system is
to make the detection of small targets possible, provided that
their radial speed is different enough from wave-crests.
Fig. 9b shows that targets with slow radial speeds (but of
opposite sign when compared with wave-crests) are
detected. The probability of detection for þ1 knot target is
60%, and reaches its nominal value at þ2 knot.
Monte Carlo simulations for single range bin targets
clearly show that the proposed approach is suitable for the
IET Radar Sonar Navig., 2009, Vol. 3, Iss. 2, pp. 155– 166
doi: 10.1049/iet-rsn:20080123

detection of very small targets in sea clutter. The detection of
periscopes is one of the tasks for which the described
processing scheme is particularly well suited and for which
the assumptions made for the simulations are reasonable.
Nevertheless, it is important to stress that Radon transform
based systems can cope with the detection of range-extensive
targets. Range-extensive targets will have a ‘flat peak’
signature in the Radon space [34]. As explained in the
previous sections, the r profile analysis is limited to the
neighbourhood of each peak. To account for ‘flat peak’
target signatures, only minor modifications are required: the
proposed r profile analysis should be performed on a longer
neighbourhood to include the rising and falling edges of the
range-extended target r profile inside the processing window.
Finally, it is necessary to state that the technique has good
performance for other operative configurations (range
resolution and dwell time). There is a link between the
required range resolution and integration time, as targets or
wave-crests should move across range bin boundaries
during the dwell time. As a consequence, and to achieve
the performance described in this section, it would be
possible to divide the required dwell time by 2 if the range
resolution is doubled. For lower transmitted bandwidths,
the integration time should be longer to keep the range
resolution to dwell time ratio constant.
5 Conclusions
In this paper, a novel approach for the detection of low RCS
targets in maritime surveillance systems is proposed. Two
Radon transform based detection schemes are detailed and
their performance is tested against real high-resolution sea
clutter. The detection is performed in an amplitude against
angle (speed) space emulating traditional MTD processors.
Monte Carlo simulations show an improvement over the
conventional CA-CFAR detection schemes. Ongoing
research is focused on the statistical analysis of Radon
transformed high-resolution sea clutter and on automatic
and adaptive strategies for the definition of the detection
mask.
6 Acknowledgment
This work has been supported by the Project TEC2008-
02148 of the Spanish National Board of Scientific and
Technology Research.
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