Tutorial 3.1
Thursday AM, 27 April 2006

Radar Clutter
Instructor: Maurice W. Long, Private Consultant, Atlanta GA, USA

Synopsis: The objective of this tutorial is to describe land, sea, and weather clutter in a manner understandable to both new and experienced radar engineers. Clutter characteristics applicable to radar system design will be discussed, but specific techniques or processors for clutter suppression will not be addressed. The tutorial will begin with a brief discussion on basic reflectivity concepts and definitions. Course material will include echo amplitude statistics, Doppler spectra, statistical independence of pulses, spiky clutter, average radar cross section, and effects of changes in polarization or frequency. The tutorial will be closed with a summary of principal features of land, sea, and rain clutter; and a list of references.

Dr. Maurice Long is author of Radar Reflectivity of Land and Sea, 3rd edition, Artech House, 2001; and editor, Airborne Early Warning System Concepts, Artech House, 1992. Retired from Georgia Institute of Technology, his last position was Director of Engineering Experiment Station (now Georgia Tech Research Institute). He works part-time as a private consultant on small target detection, Principal Research Engineer at Georgia Tech Research Institute, and professor at Southern Polytechnic State University. He is a Life Fellow of IEEE, a member of Commission F of URSI and of Academy of Electromagnetics. His biography appears in Who's Who in America, American Men and Women of Science, and Who's Who in Engineering.