Performance comparison of optimum and conventional MTI and Doppler processors

The theory of detecting a useful target echo embedded in thermal noise and clutter with known statistics has been well established in a number of investigations. The 'optimum filter' rejects the correlated component (clutter) of the input interference through the exploitation of the a priori knowledge of the clutter statistics. This result is achieved by a proper filter shape, which reduces the frequency components occupied by the clutter spectrum. In the present study, a comparison is conducted of the performance provided by the optimum filter and other more conventional filtering techniques. The considered conventional filters include a fixed MTI, an adaptive MTI (AMTI), and a coherent integrator (CI). A unified analytical method is proposed and employed to evaluate and compare the performance of the considered filters.