Moving target detection in the cepstrum domain for passive coherent location (PCL) radar

A cepstrum moving target detection (CEPMTD) algorithm based on cepstrum techniques is proposed for passive coherent location (PCL) radar systems. The primary cepstrum techniques are of great success in recognizing the arrival times of static target echoes. To estimate the Doppler frequencies of moving targets, we divide the radar data into a large number of segments, and reformat these segments into a detection matrix. Applying the cepstrum and the Fourier transform to the fast and slow time dimensions respectively, we can obtain the range information and Doppler information of the moving targets. Based on the CEPMTD outlined above, an improved CEPMTD algorithm is proposed to improve the detection performance. Theoretical analyses show that only the target's peak can be coherently added. The performance of the improved CEPMTD is initially validated by simulations, and then by experiments. The simulation results show that the detection performance of the improved CEPMTD algorithm is 13.3 dB better than that of the CEPMTD algorithm and 6.4 dB better than that of the classical detection algorithm based on the radar cross ambiguity function (CAF). The experiment results show that the detection performance of the improved CEPMTD algorithm is 1.63 dB better than that of the radar CAF.