Two‐stage constant false alarm rate detection for distributed multiple‐input–multiple‐output radar

In this study, the authors consider a two‐stage constant false alarm rate (TS‐CFAR) detection problem in a distributed multiple‐input–multiple‐output radar. This study is motivated by the fact that the clutter plus noise power and the signal to clutter plus noise ratio may be both unknown in practice. Two TS‐CFAR detectors are proposed, that is, TS generalised likelihood ratio test detector and TS adaptive matched filter detector. Each of the proposed detectors has two thresholds: the first one called local threshold controls the communication rate and the second one called global threshold adjusts the global probability of false alarm. It is proved that both of the proposed detectors have CFAR property. Numerical results illustrate that the two proposed detectors have good detection performance at a low communication rate.