Detection in reverberation using space time adaptive prewhiteners

A major problem in moving platform active sonar systems is the detection of targets in spatially distributed and Doppler-spread reverberation. This paper presents a novel space time adaptive prewhitener for reverberation based on a two-dimensional autoregressive model. The space time adaptive prewhitener jointly processes received data in angle and Doppler to improve the separation of a target from reverberation. The detector using the space time adaptive prewhitener is shown to yield better detection performance than previously known schemes when operating in a reverberation background containing target echoes.