Adaptive CFAR PI Processor for Radar Target Detection in Pulse Jamming

A new parallel algorithm for signal processing and a parallel systolic architecture of a CFAR processor with adaptive post detection integration (API) are presented in this paper. The processor proposed is used for effective target detection in a single range resolution cell of a radar when echoes from small airborne targets are performed in conditions of pulse jamming. The main property of the algorithm proposed is its ability automatically to determine and censor the unwanted samples corrupted by pulse jamming in both the two-dimensional reference window and the test cell before noise level estimation. In such a way the influence of pulse jamming environment over adaptive thresholding is reduced to minimum. Statistical analysis of the algorithm for target detection shows that the signal-to-noise ratio losses are insignificant even if the power and the frequency of pulse jamming are extremely high. The systolic architecture of the CFAR API is designed. Basic measures of the systolic architecture are the number of processor elements, the computational time and the speed-up needed for real-time implementation.