Covariance‐free non‐homogeneity STAP detector in compound Gaussian clutter based on robust statistics

Space‐time adaptive processing (STAP) detects targets by computing adaptive weight vectors for each cell under test using its covariance matrix, as estimated from surrounding secondary cells. In this study, the non‐homogeneity detector (NHD) excludes the anomalous secondary cells that adversely affect the detection performance. The existing robust NHDs require estimating the covariance matrix of each secondary cell, which hinders their implementation in modern radars with large‐dimensional range cells. In this study, the authors propose a new low‐complexity NHD that is suitable for highly correlated clutter environments with both Gaussian and non‐Gaussian heavy‐tailed distributions. The proposed detector, which is based on the projection depth function from the field of robust statistics, features a non‐parametric and covariance‐free test statistic. As a result, its computational complexity is much lower than that of current NHDs, such as the widely used normalised adaptive matched filter (NAMF) detector, especially for large‐dimensional range cells. In Monte Carlo simulations with different clutter distributions and radar system configurations, the proposed detector shows comparable performance to that of NAMF. The low complexity and robust performance of the new detector make it particularly attractive for real‐time applications.