Detection of Small and Slow-Moving Targets on Sea Surface via Low-Rank Sparse Decomposition

The detection of small and slow-moving targets in the background of sea clutter is a key issue faced by marine detection radars. To address this problem, this paper proposes a sea target detection algorithm based on low-rank sparse decomposition. The algorithm introduces the range dimension on the basis of time-frequency transform domain analysis and constructs a three-dimensional transform domain of time, frequency, and range. In the three-dimensional transform domain, target mostly exists in specific range cells and has sparse characteristics; sea clutter spans all range cells and has low-rank characteristics due to similar characteristics within adjacent range cells. Based on this, the low-rank and sparse decomposition method can effectively separate target from sea clutter, and achieve target detection combined with inter-frame joint detection techniques. Compared with methods such as Moving Target Indication (MTI), the method proposed in this paper has a higher target detection rate.