Persymmetric subspace detector for distributed target in partially homogeneous environment

This paper deals with the problem of distributed target detection in partially homogeneous Gaussian clutter whose covariance matrix is unknown but persymmetric. It is assumed that primary data and training data share the same clutter covariance matrix structure but different power levels. The target signal is supposed to lie in a multi‐rank subspace with unknown coordinates. A persymmetric subspace detector is designed based on the generalised likelihood ratio test criteria. It is theoretically demonstrated that the proposed detector possesses constant false alarm rate property with respect to the unknown clutter covariance matrix as well as the power level. Experimental results illustrate the performance advantage of the proposed detector over the existing competitors, especially in training‐limited scenarios.