Abstract
A new range-spread target detection algorithm in white Gaussian clutter for missile-borne radar is presented. For missile-borne radars, range migration of the target echoes during a coherent processing interval is serious, which disperses the echo energy of the target and increases the difficulty for target detection. In the paper, range alignment for target echoes is accomplished in the frequency domain during the process of digital pulse compression. Then, a range-spread detection algorithm based on the waveform entropy of the average combination of high range resolution profiles (HRRPs) is addressed, which has the property of constant false-alarm rate. Finally, the detection performance of the algorithm is assessed by Monte-Carlo simulation, and the result indicates that the detection performance of the proposed detector is superior to the traditional energy integrator and is robust for different HRRPs of the target.