Adaptive Radar Clutter Suppression

Based on Real Data

SONG Jie, HE You, TANG Xiao-ming

Research Institute of Information fusion, Naval Aeronautical Engineering Institute, Yantai, P.R. China, 264001
phone: 086-535-6635773, fax: 086-535-6635773, e-mail: jie810512gtom.com

Abstract-Adaptive radar clutter suppression algorithm and N-1

realization are important things in radar signal processing
system. The paper firstly discusses a method based on the
Y(n)= WTX(n) = Y wix(n - i)
i=O
(1)
maximum average improvement factor to compute the where
weight vector of adaptive clutter filter in theory, and then
describes a simple, low-cost adaptive MTI system for W = [WO, W1,*'* ,WN-1 ]T,
bimodal clutter suppression, which uses precomputed filter
coefflcients stored in the weight coefflcients library. Results
of applying this adaptive MTI filter on real radar data X(n) = [x(n), x(n - 1), , x(n - (N -1))]T
demonstrate that the filter gives an extensive reduction of
clutter in the radar image. are, respectively, the weight vector and the input signal
vector.
Key words: adaptive filter, MTI, clutter suppression The MTI filter frequency response is:
N-1
I. INTRODUCTION H(f) = Z wi exp(-j2iz/T) (2)
The radar clutter heavily influences the target detection i=O
ability of a radar system. Conventional radar systems where
assume the clutter is stationary with its energy concentrated
at low frequencies. Thus, a fixed high pass filter (HPF) is I
used to filter out the clutter [1]. However, such filters are
not very effective against moving clutter, which may have
T I =ZAT. X (3)
j=o
considerable average Doppler frequency. Therefore,
adaptive radar clutter suppression algorithm and realization is the moment of sampling, and AlTj (ATo =0, 0,1,.. .,i) is
are important things in radar signal processing system. the pulse repetition interval (PRI).
The purpose of an adaptive MTI filter is to suppress In practical radar system, staggered PRI is a
clutter and pass through target signal in such a way as to conventional technique to improve the target's blind-
maximize improvement factor [2]. If the clutter spectrum is velocity. However, the weight vector of the MTI filter is
known exactly, an optimal filter may be designed. However, time-variant.
in practice, clutter spectrum is not known and, furthermore, To maximize the signal-to-clutter ratio (SCR) at the
this spectrum changes in ranges, azimuth and time. Thus, filter output, the optimal weight vector (W0,,) of the MTI
the implementation of those fully adaptive filters is filter should be the owning vector corresponding with the
complicated and expensive. minimum owning value (Xmin) of the clutter covariance
The focus of this paper is to discuss the method based matrix (R,) [3].
on the maximum average improvement factor to compute
the weight vector of adaptive clutter filter in theory, and c opt =2AW
RW min opt (4)
then proposed a simple, low-cost adaptive MTI system here, the average improvement factor is
with complex coefficients used for bimodal clutter
suppression. The performance of this adaptive clutter Imax = 1/ Ami(5)
suppression algorithm is tested with the real data of a
coherent radar. According to the assumption that the clutter has a
power spectrum density function of the Gaussian type, the
clutter's normalized power spectrum density function is as
II. ADAPIVE OPTIMAL FILTERS follows [4]:
The optimal MTI filter is usually implemented as a
transversal FIR filter. The output of the MTI filter is as
follow: SCmf)-
Sc(f) =
c~~JI
1
I
lo )'
22o-2
2;Tc~~~~~~ ~C
exp{1- (f/ -
(6)

This paper is supported by National Nature Science Foundation of

China (60541001) and A Foundation for the Author of National Excellent
Doctoral Dissertation of PR China(200443).
0-7803-9582-4/06/$20.00 C2006 IEEE

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where c7, is the standard deviation of the clutter frequency, because of high computational complexity, several sets of
andfo is the center frequency of the clutter power spectrum. precomputed coefficients are stored in the bimodal clutter
Then, the correlation function is filter and chosen according to estimated weight coefficients
from the weight vector estimator.
-C (ie j) =F2 [Sc ( s)]
(7) B. Bimodal Clutter Filter
= exp(- Tc 2rj)(cos 2/-zaifo + j sin 2/-z- fo )
Clutter is conventionally divided into two primary
where -rj=ti-tj is the correlation time. Thus, the clutter categories: stationary clutter (ground clutter) and moving
covariance matrix is
clutter (sea clutter and weather clutter). The clutter
spectrum distribution is depicted in Fig. 2. The ground
IRc (0, O) Rc (0 1) ... Rc (01 N) clutter spectrum is centered around zero frequency and has
narrow bandwidth. The ground clutter signal power may be
=Rc (1,0) Rc (11 ) ... Rc (11N) (8)
very high, so high attenuation and narrow stopband
needed. However, the moving clutter spectrum usually is
is
centered around average Doppler frequency, it seems
*. . * . . .. ...

Rc (N,0) Rc (N, ) ..Rc(NIN) possible to increase MTI filter attenuation in a vicinity of

this frequency.
If the standard deviation (a,) and the center frequency
(fo) are determined, the clutter covariance matrix (R,) can Amplitude ground
be determined by (7). Then, the optimal weight vector (W0,,)
A
//clutter
of the MTI filter can be calculated by (4). sea weather
/ clutter clutter
F requency
III. NEAR OPTIMAL MTI SYSTEM 0
.
v

A. System Configuration
It is obvious that to achieve near optimal clutter
suppression some form of adaptation to a clutter signal is
necessary. One could try to use fully adaptive solution, for
instance prediction filter, but such adaptive filters are
complicated and expensive. Therefore, to achieve good
results the MTI filter need not be fully adaptive, and the
simpler form of adaptation is important and sufficient.
Because the clutter can be unimodal or bimodal,
depending on range and conditions, the conventional
adaptive MTI filters usually use two cascaded MTI filters:
ground clutter (zero frequency) filter and moving clutter
(sea clutter or weather clutter) filter [5]. Both ground clutter
filter and moving clutter filter are required to be adaptive,
so those filters' coefficients are usually chosen depending
on estimated clutter parameters, namely the center
frequency and bandwidth of clutter power spectrum.
However, it is not easy to estimate the clutter parameters
accurately in real time. So, it is necessary to design a
simple, low-cost adaptive MTI system for ground, sea and
weather clutter suppression.
The proposed MTI system consists of a bimodal clutter
Figure2 Clutter spectrum distribution
The bimodal clutter filter who has two notches is
designed to suppress the ground clutter and one kind of
moving clutter (sea or weather clutter). One notch aims at
the ground clutter, the other aims at the moving clutter.
According to the practical target environment, we can
determine what kind of moving clutter to suppress. For
instance, in order to find the ship on the sea, the bimodal
clutter filter should suppress the ground and sea clutter.
The weather clutter average Doppler frequency usually
does not exceed one fourth of the average PRF and the
spectrum is rather wide. We can divide the range of
weather Doppler frequency (-1/4f,r1/4f) into 8 segments,
and precompute filter coefficients for these segments
according to the equations of optimal weight vector
mentioned above. Bimodal clutter filter frequency
responses for weather clutter with Doppler frequency shifts
(fd =1 /16 f, 1/8f8, 3/16 f/, 1/4f4) are shown in Fig. 3.
50
0

filter with complex coefficients and weight vector estimator. - - r

---
- - - - - - T - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - = r~
- - - - - - - - ~-

The system configuration is depicted in Fig. 1.

-o

-100

fd-1/16
fd=-li
-250 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - fd= /
-
fd=3/1 6
l l ~~~~~~~~~f
d=1 AT
-0.2 -0 1 0 01 02 03 04 05
Figurel System configuration block diagram Normalized Frequency (x-n rad/sample)

In this system, several sets of 8th order FIR filters are Figure3 Bimodal clutter filter frequency responses for weather clutter
designed according to different clutter environment in The sea clutter average Doppler frequency is lower than
advance. Filter coefficients are not computed on-line, weather clutter, usually does not exceed one sixteenth of

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the average PRF and its spectrum is narrower than weather waveform in azimuth direction and signal spectrum are
clutter. We can also divide the range of sea Doppler shown in Fig. 7 and Fig. 8.
frequency (-1 /16f 1/6f/) into 8 segments, and
precomputed filter coefficients for these segments, and The effect of applying an 8th order bimodal MTI filter
store these coefficients in the bimodal clutter filter. to the collected radar data is illustrated in Fig. 9. The PPI-
Bimodal clutter filter frequency responses for sea clutter plot in Figure9 shows the adaptive MTI filter has removed
with Doppler frequency shifts (fd 1/64 fr, 1/32 fr, 3/64 fr, most of the ground and sea clutter, while the magnitude of
1/ 16/) are shown in Fig. 4. the target signal seem relatively unchanged by the filtering
process.
-56

:E, -150 -~~~~~~~~~~~1

- r --

1200 _

fd 1/64
fd-132
----fd-3A634
fd-1/16
-300
-0.06 -0.04 -0602 0 0.02 0.04 OEO 0I08 061 0612
Normalized Frequency (xR rad/sample)
Figure4 Bimodal clutter filter frequency responses for sea clutter

C. Weight Vector Estimator

Figure6 PPI-plot of the collected radar data without clutter attenuation
In this near optimal MTI system, the weight vector u.c
estimator need not estimate clutter parameters, such as the Channel
center frequency and bandwidth of clutter power spectrum. 0.15
Channel 0
According to the practical target environment, and the sea
and weather clutter characteristics, 8 sets of bimodal clutter U1
filter are designed in advance. Then, each clutter cell is
input to 8 sets of bimodal clutter filter at the same time. By 0.05
comparing the output of 8 sets of bimodal clutter filter, the
weight vector estimator can estimate the optimal weight
coefficients. The configuration of the weight vector
estimator is depicted in Fig. 5. - .05

-O. 1

I9>Clufte
=) B3imodal Clutter Fi:lter 2
Wei ght
J Coi parator Coef( ic
and
E-stimnatfd

N>
-U 15 I - .-
vCell
Memo] coefficlentls -L
6
21-
2040 60 80 1lO 1206
h
Selector Tirme m

Figure7 Target signal waveform in azimuth direction

B a l Clu it er;

Figure5 Configuration of the weight vector estimator

- -

It is noted that each clutter cell is the average of 16

range resolution cells. The clutter cell memory is used to
store 8 clutter cells which are input to 8th order FIR filters.

IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

This section presents the result of applying the adaptive
radar clutter suppression algorithm on real radar data
obtained from a coherent radar. When no clutter attenuation
is implemented, the collected radar data results in the radar
image are displayed in Fig. 6.This Plan Position Indicator
plot (PPI-plot) is the result of target detection with a gL
-W 3W 2 .U 2 3

coherent radar receiver. The clutter within 0 to 30 -40Ci -300 -200 - 100 0
Frequency (Hz)
1 00 200 300 400
kilometers is mainly ground clutter and sea clutter. There is
a target (ship) in the PPI-plot, and the target signal Figure8 Target signal spectrum

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Figure9 PPI-plot of the collected radar data
after filtering with an 8th order adaptive MTI filter
V. CONCLUSIONS
The possibility of increasing clutter attenuation by use
of the adaptive MTI filter with complex coefficients has
been verified experimentally based on the real radar data.
Some theoretical methods for computing the optimal
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weight vector are presented here. Those methods have been
used for design of a simple, low-cost adaptive MTI system
for the bimodal clutter suppression. It seems that the near
optimal MTI system presented here are simpler than
previously reported systems which use mixers to shift input
signal frequency, or choose filters' coefficients depending
on estimated clutter parameters.
REFERENCES
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[3] Zhang Qi-tu, "A new approach to near optimum MTI filter design
using adaptive techniques," IEEE International Radar Conference,
1988, pp. 1228-1231
[4] Huang Li, and Wang Xue-gang, "An adaptive clutter rejection
algorithm and implementation," Micro-electronic Techniques, 2004,
pp. 82-84
[5] Michal Tuszynski, Andrzej Wojtkiewicz, and Wieslaw Klembowski,
"Bimodal clutter MTI filter for staggered PRF radars," IEEE
International Radar Conference, 1990, pp. 176-180