Forward-Looking Radar Clutter Suppression Using Frequency Diverse Arrays

Forward-Looking Airborne Radar (FLAR) Space-Time Adaptive Processing (STAP) has not achieved the same level of radar performance improvement as side- looking radar, because the ground clutter doppler-range dependence destroys the In- dependent and Identically Distributed (iid) assumption key to the STAP foundation. This thesis examines the Frequency Diverse Array (FDA), where each channel transmits and receives at a di erent frequency. The resulting range-dependent FDA antenna pattern is proposed to improve FLAR STAP performance. The planar FDA radar data model is derived and analytically veri ed to be equivalent to the constant frequency data model when each element frequency is set to the same value. The linear FDA at high platform altitude provides signi cant bene ts by reduc- ing the range ambiguous clutter contribution, improving target detection by 10 dB at the range ambiguous clutter notch.