Detection and fast motion parameter estimation for target with range walk effect based on new axis rotation moving target detection

Abstract In order to address the range walk (RW) effect in the field of radar high speed target detection, the axis rotation MTD (AR-MTD) class algorithms based on long-time coherent integration, i.e., AR-MTD, improved axis rotation MTD (IAR-MTD), and modified location rotation transform (MLRT) have been proposed in recent works. However, they are faced with detection performance loss and large computational complexity. In this paper, a new axis rotation MTD (NAR-MTD) algorithm is proposed. Different from the previous AR-MTD class algorithms, NAR-MTD first selects the image center of 2-D compressed signal as the coordinate system origin, and then simplifies the axis rotation relationship to reduce the rotation error caused by the coordinate transformation and correct the RW to the initial range location. Furthermore, by exploiting the geometrical information of mismatched NAR-MTD, the adaptive AR-MTD (AAR-MTD) is proposed to realize efficient motion parameter estimation of the moving target in different SNR environments. Numerical simulations and real data process indicate that NAR-MTD has a better detection ability than that of AR-MTD class algorithms. Meanwhile, the computational efficiency of AAR-MTD is about two orders of magnitude higher than that of direct 2-D search of NAR-MTD.