CA-CFAR detection in spatially correlated K-distributed sea clutter

Radar detection of targets in sea clutter modelled by compound K-distribution is examined from a statistical detection viewpoint by Monte Carlo simulations. The detection performance of Cell Averaging Constant False Alarm Rate (CA-CFAR) is compared with the performance of fixed threshold detection. The performance evaluations are quantified by CFAR loss. Curves for CFAR loss to the spatial correlation and spikiness of sea clutter, number of cells of CA-CFAR processor and the number of non-coherently integrated pulses are presented.