Subspace-based distributed target detection method with small training data samples

Detecting distributed targets precisely in homogeneous environments has been a hot topic in radar signal processing. Generally, distributed targets are often modelled with subspace models of unknown coordinates, and clutter is modelled as the complex Gaussian distribution with zero mean and unknown covariance matrix, while covariance matrix is estimated with a set of training data without the target signal. However, in practice, the complexity of the external environment makes the training data that satisfy the condition of independent homogeneous distribution less available. Therefore, it is assumed that the covariance matrix of the clutter is persymmetric structure and the approach of dimensionality reduction using subspace transformations is introduced, two detectors based upon generalised likelihood ratio test criterion and Wald test criterion in homogeneous environments are proposed. Theoretical analyses indicate the constant false alarm rate characteristics of the two proposed detectors for unknown clutter covariance matrices. Simulation analyses indicate that the proposed detector works well even with fewer training data samples, and its detection performance outperforms that of existing contrast detectors. © 2024 The Author(s). IET Radar, Sonar & Navigation published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of The Institution of Engineering and Technology.