Mitigation of the Effects of Unknown Sea Clutter Statistics by Using Radial Basis Function Network

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate feasibility of employing Radial Basis Function (RBF) network into non-coherent detection process, for detection of targets embedded in sea clutter of unknown statistics. We particularly have in mind Croatian part of Adriatic Sea, the local sea whose clutter statistic properties are not available in open literature. Performance of the detection process employing proposed RBF network is tested with simulated clutter samples based on real sea clutter data. These data were collected under sea state conditions that represent two thirds of the total wave heights in Adriatic and textcolor{red}{are} chosen to represent unknown clutter statistics due to the fact that no single probability density function equally well fits amplitude distribution of the range bins under test. It is demonstrated that, compared to the traditional [zlog(z)] method, RBF network with just four components and lognormal basis function, yields operating characteristics that better match designed ones.