CFAR processor for ESM systems applications

The authors consider the design of a CFAR processor for the adaptive thresholding system of an ESM receiver. For this purpose, the important specifications of ESM systems are the reception of pulses with various widths and rates, and vulnerability to noise jammers. The major difficulty in determining the statistics of the background noise is the problem of interfering signals. In situations of tolerable variations in background noise power, an MEx-CFAR processor is proposed which exhibits good robustness against interfering pulses. When large variations in noise power are possible, an AMEx-CFAR processor is proposed. The feedback loop used in the structure of the AMEx processor permits it to adapt itself quickly to new background conditions. Performance of the proposed CFAR processors is investigated in various cases by means of Monte Carlo simulation and methods for the determination of their design parameters are discussed.