CANADIAN EAST-COAST RADAR TRIALS AND THE K-DISTRIBUTION

The use of the K-distribution to describe the amplitude statistics of sea clutter collected with an instrument-quality X-band radar off the East Coast of Canada is investigated. It is shown that the K-distribution is suitable for modelling the amplitude statistics of both like-polarised and crosspolarised radar configurations. The amplitude statistics of small ice targets (growlers) in spiky clutter are also examined; the results obtained indicate that using only long-term amplitude statistics is not sufficient for the reliable detection of such targets in the presence of sea clutter. Furthermore, it is shown that the cross-polarised channel does not offer any added benefit to small target detection when considering only long-term amplitude statistics. We also consider the phase statistics of sea clutter and show them to be uniformly distributed on 2 pi.