Abstract:

A new coherent fluctuation based processor for enhancing spatial resolution, suppression of clutter, and unalerted autodetection, designated AWSUM III[inf 434], is described and results are presented. The processor is a combination of the Wagstaff's Integration Silencing Processor (WISPR) III [R. A. Wagstaff and J. George, SPIE Aerospace/Defense Sensing and Controls '96 Symposium, Targets and Background: Characterizations and Representation II Conference, Proc. SPIE 2751, 132--141 (1996)] and the Advanced WISPR Summation (AWSUM) processor [R. A. Wagstaff, IEEE J. Ocean. Eng. 22, 110--118 (1997)]. While WISPR III achieves signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) gains of about 14 dB, AWSUM III[inf 434] achieves gains of about 24 dB. In addition, the spatial resolution of AWSUM III[inf 434] is significantly enhanced, and the unaltered autodetection/identification capability for signals from submerged sources is measurably increased, e.g., by 10 dB. [Work supported by ONR and NRL.]