Parametric Modeling of Sea Clutter Doppler Spectra

For radar modeling and simulation of sea clutter, there are a number of key characteristics used to describe the observed features. These include the mean backscatter power, amplitude statistics, spatial and long-time temporal correlation, and the Doppler spectrum. Regarding the latter, a common modeling approach is to use the mean Doppler characteristics (width and center point) to relate to the sea conditions. However, this does not capture the time- and range-varying fluctuations of the Doppler spectra, which are important for assessing the behavior of coherent detection schemes. The evolving Doppler spectrum model offers a way to model these variations and can be described with a moderate number of parameters. Relating these to the observed geometry, environment and radar characteristics are important to make the models accessible. Previous work has characterized X-band radar sea clutter over a range of sea conditions and azimuth and grazing angles. In this article, new models are presented that capture variations with both the radar resolved area and integration time. This enables the evolved Doppler spectra model to be used over a much wider range of applications.