A new coherent integration method for weak maneuvering target with jerk motion

Abstract In radar systems, prolonging the integration time helps to improve the detection and estimation performance of weak target. However, in a long integration time, target's high-order motion is non-ignorable, which causes high-order range migration (RM) and Doppler frequency migration (DFM) problems. The RM and DFM defocus the integration result and lead to detection and estimation performance loss. In this paper, a new coherent integration method is proposed for maneuvering radar target with jerk motion. First, we define a new cross correlation function basing on non-uniformly resampling technique. By using this function, we eliminate the range migration (RM) and Doppler frequency migration (DFM) caused by target's velocity and acceleration. Then, matched filtering process is performed to compensate the phase error caused by target's jerk motion. Finally, the integration is achieved by summing signal data in different range frequency cells and performing a two-dimensional fast Fourier transform (FFT). The proposed method is applicable for low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) environment. Compared with the GRFT algorithm, the proposed method has a close integration performance and a lower computational complexity. The effectiveness is validated by simulations and real-data processing results.