Adaptive CFAR for Space-Based Multichannel SAR–GMTI

This paper studies the statistics of clutter data measured with a multichannel space-based synthetic aperture radar (SAR) for the purpose of ground moving target indication (GMTI) and presents an algorithm that implements an adaptive constant false-alarm rate (CFAR) detector. It discusses the differences between airborne and space-based SAR-GMTI clutter measurements and proposes how to develop the statistics of the latter from widely published results for the former. Based upon one of the differences, it proposes an adaptive CFAR detector and demonstrates detection using measured RADARSAT-2 data. The adaptive CFAR algorithm does not require a texture distribution for heterogeneous clutter.