The effects of covariance matrix mismatch on adaptive CFAR performance

Abstract

This paper analyses the CFAR performance of the Normalised Adaptive Matched Filter (NAMF) when the estimate of the covariance matrix used to design the filter does not match the clutter in the cell under test. The analysis results are compared with simulations and the potential effects on practical detectors are investigated using a recently developed model for the non-stationary Doppler spectra of sea clutter.