Efficient detection method for moving targets based on the Radon Fourier transform and acceleration filter

For stable detection of High-speed small aircraft, long-term coherent accumulation is generally required, which presents challenges due to range and Doppler migration. The focus-before-detection method based on the generalized Radon Fourier transform (GRFT) has proven effective in addressing these issues. However, GRFT involves searching and compensating for motion parameters in a high-dimensional space, resulting in a substantial computational burden. This paper proposes a method that combines Radon Fourier transform (RFT) and an acceleration filter (AF), i.e. AF-RFT. Specifically, the RFT is first applied to the collected signals to eliminate the range migration (RM) caused by speed, projecting the target into range-speed space. Then, to address the Doppler frequency modulation (DFM) introduced by acceleration, an acceleration filter along the slow-time dimension is developed. This filter gathers the distributed target energy across speed units, enabling the target to focus in range-speed-acceleration space. Simulation results reveal that the proposed method effectively resolves RM and DFM, thereby improving detection performance while maintaining low computational burden.