High Speed Low Cost Signal Processor for Multi-Band

THIS PROPOSAL DESCRIBES A NOVEL APPROACH TO IMPROVING PERFORMANCE OF MTI RADARS FOR THE DETECTION AND CLASSIFICATION OF MODERN, LOW OBSERVABLE TARGETS IN RELATIVELY HIGH CLUTTER ENVIRONMENTS. AN IMPORTANT PART OF THIS APPROACH IS ATLANTIC AEROSPACE ELECTRONICS CORP'S. APPLICATION OF MORPHOLOGICAL PROCESSING TECHNIQUES TO RADAR DETECTION, TRACKING AND FEATURE EXTRACTION FOR CLASSIFICATION. THESE TECHNIQUES OFFER IMPROVED PERFORMANCE AGAINST NONUNIFORM CLUTTER BACKGROUNDS AND HIGH FALSE ALARMS RESULTING FROM USE OF LOWERED THRESHOLDS FOR DETECTION OF REDUCED-RADAR-CROSS SECTION TARGETS. IN ADDITION, THEY ARE COMPUTATIONALLY SIMPLE AND THUS CAN HANDLE LARGE AMOUNTS OF DATA AT REAL-TIME RATES IN COMPACT PROCESSOR HARDWARE IMPLEMENTATIONS. THIS IS IMPORTANT TO THE PROBLEM AT HAND SINCE THE CAPABILITIES OF CURRENT STATE-OF-THE-ART RADAR SYSTEM COMPONENTS WILL BE EXAMINED AND TRADES MADE TO CHOOSE RADAR PARAMETERS THAT OPTIMIZE PERFORMANCE. IN PARTICULAR, A HYBRID ANALOG/DIGITAL CLUTTER CANCELLATION SCHEME WILL BE EVALUATED WHICH OFFERS THE POTENTIAL TO REDUCE THE A/D CONVERTER DYNAMIC RANGE REQUIREMENT ALLOWING USE OF FASTER SAMPLING FOR BETTER RADAR RANGE RESOLUTION AND REDUCE CLUTTER. WHILE THIS WILL REDUCE THE SUBCLUTTER VISIBILITY REQUIREMENT ON THE MTI PROCESSING, IT CAN SUBSTANTIALLY INCREASE THE PROCESSING COMPUTATIONAL LOAD.