Detection of weak maneuvering target based on keystone transform and matched filtering process

Detection of weak maneuvering target often suffers from the problems of the range migration (RM) and the Doppler frequency migration (DFM) within the coherent pulse interval. In order to eliminate the RM and DFM, a new coherent integration method based on keystone transform (KT) and matched filtering process (MFP), i.e., KT-MFP, is proposed. Specifically, this method firstly corrects the linear RM caused by the unambiguous velocity via KT and then the MFP, which jointly searching in the fold factor and acceleration domain, is carried out to remove the residual RM and compensate the DFM. At last, coherent integration of the target's energy is achieved through the slow time Fourier transform (FT). The advantage of the proposed method is that it can obtain superior coherent integration and detection performance for both the slow-moving and fast-moving target, in comparison with the existing algorithms. In addition, KT-MFP could avoid the blind speed sidelobe (BSSL) effect. Numerical simulations are performed to assess the performance from different aspects, i.e., computational complexity, coherent integration for a low-speed target, detection performance for a low-speed target, coherent integration for a high-speed target, detection performance for a high-speed target and coherent integration for multi-targets.