Effects of antenna rotation on STAP performance in forward applications

Abstract

The effects of platform rotation, and in particular antenna rotation, on the performance of space-time adaptive processing (STAP) in clutter limited, forward looking airborne radar applications are considered. The change of shape of the clutter surface in angle-Doppler space as the antenna rotates is critical to the performance of STAP. Theoretical considerations and simulation results show that STAP is likely to be more resilient to roll than yaw, although the problems of yaw can be alleviated by the application of motion compensated phase delay steering.