Neural network-based adaptive selection CFAR for radar target detection in various environments

Constant false alarm rate (CFAR), a target detection method commonly used in the radar systems, has an inconsistent performance against various environments. For improving the radar detectability, this paper proposes a novel scheme of radar target detection using neural network-based adaptive selection CFAR. The proposed method employs cell-averaging, ordered-statistic, greatest-of and smallest-of CFAR thresholds as the basis of references. The pattern of those threshold values combined with the cell under test signal value will be identified and classified by the neural network to compute the raw threshold. Then, the final threshold is selected depending on the nearest value between raw and four referenced CFARs. The performance of the proposed method is examined against three possible cases of the radar systems including homogeneous background, multiple targets and clutter boundary. The result of this research shows that the proposed method outperforms the classical CFARs due to the adaptive selection algorithm can select properly among referenced CFARs against the given cases particularly in the homogeneous and multiple target environments.