Performance Analysis of the MLG-CFAR Detector in Homogenous Gamma-Distributed Sea Clutter

This letter presents an analytical study of the performance of the maximum-likelihood gamma constant false alarm rate (MLG-CFAR) detector operating over a homogenous gamma-distributed (GM) clutter. To accomplish this task, a novel closed-form expression for the probability of false alarm and a highly accurate approximation for the probability of detection are derived. Specifically, this proposed approximation is also given in a closed form. These expressions, which can be of great interest to the radar community, are given in terms of the Gauss hypergeometric function and the Tricomi function. Besides, the proposed expressions can be easily implemented and computed using most popular scientific software packages such as MATLAB, Maple, and Mathematica. Our propositions are then tested and validated using numerical computing and Monte Carlo simulations. The obtained results demonstrate a high accuracy and significant computational advantages of the proposed expressions compared to the alternative ones. Moreover, the detection performance of the MLG-CFAR detector is also conducted assuming a homogenous clutter with a known shape parameter.