Abstract
The coherent temporal characteristics of
medium-to-low grazing angle sea clutter and small boat reflectivity
are considered for different radar waveforms under a range
of environmental conditions and geometrical configurations. Accurate
empirical modelling of sea clutter enables the inference
of the local sea conditions from radar returns, pertinent for
port safety and navigation. Understanding the dynamics and
associated reflectivity of small boats, in addition to empirical
sea clutter models, allows the development of advanced detection
and tracking algorithms, which will improve the performance of
surveillance and marine navigation radar against small boats.
Work presented is based on the empirical analysis of data
recorded with two calibrated, coherent, pulsed radar systems at
X-band frequencies. Specifically, target echoes from small boats
are included in the datasets and subsequent analysis.