Research on Ground Clutter Polarization Suppression Algorithm Based on Prior Information

Low-altitude unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) targets are challenging to detect by radar due to their low flight altitude, which exposes them to strong interferences from complex ground clutter. To address this, this paper proposes a ground clutter polarization suppression method based on prior information, facilitating the effective detection of low-altitude UAV targets. Initially, the method establishes a clutter prior information database and a clutter map according to the actual radar application environment, classifying different types of clutter. This serves as the prior information for clutter, supporting detection in the context of complex ground clutter backgrounds. Subsequently, a linear polarization filtering algorithm optimized based on maximizing the signal-to-clutter ratio (SCR) is proposed for specific clutter environments. A strong clutter point is selected from the clutter map, and the effectiveness of the algorithm proposed in this paper is analyzed and verified using real-world radar data collected from field measurements. The results indicate that the proposed algorithm improves the average signal-to-clutter ratio by 15.39 dB compared to single polarization channels. This method provides a reference for complex ground clutter polarization suppression and polarization detection.