Small-target detection in sea clutter

Sea clutter in marine surveillance radar makes the task of detecting small targets a very challenging problem. In this paper, a set of three signal processing techniques designed to suppress unwanted sea clutter radar echo and achieve target detection with no prior knowledge of the ocean and environmental conditions is presented. These include signal averaging, time-frequency representation, and morphological filtering. Datasets from real marine radar operating in staring mode are used to illustrate the performance of the new approaches.