A Parametric Adaptive Radar Detector

In this paper we propose and assess an adaptive radar detector that can adjust its "directivity" through a real scalar parameter. Proper choices of such a parameter return, as special cases, the well-known Kelly's GLRT and the recently introduced W-ABORT detector. More important, through the tuning of the above parameter one can control the level to which sidelobe signals are rejected. Such functionality is particularly important to contain the number of false alarms in presence of mismatched signals. At the analysis stage we assume a homogeneous Gaussian environment and derive analytical expressions for the Probability of False Alarm and the Probability of Detection for matched and mismatched signals. Remarkably, the proposed detector possesses the CFAR property with respect to the noise covariance matrix and the considered examples have highlighted that it can ensure better rejection capabilities than the ACE at the price of an acceptable detection loss for matched signals with respect to Kelly's GLRT