Remote Sensing, Vol. 14, Pages 3915: The Dynamic Sea Clutter Simulation of Shore-Based Radar Based on Stokes Waves (Remote Sensing)

The sea clutter model based on the physical sea surface can simulate radar echo at different times and positions and is more suitable for describing dynamic sea clutter than the traditional models based on statistical significance. However, when applying the physical surface model to shore-based radar, the effects of wave nonlinearity, breaking wave, shadow, and radar footprint size must be considered. In this paper, a dynamic sea clutter simulation scheme based on a nonlinear wave is proposed that uses random Stokes waves instead of linear superposition waves to simulate the nonlinear dynamic sea surface and then calculates echo in the form of scattering cells. In this process, the relationship between wind speed and the nonlinear factor of the Stokes wave is derived, a simple model of shadow modulation is provided, and a method for appending the sea clutter spikes formed by breaking waves is developed. The experimental results show that the simulated sea clutter and the real measured clutter have good consistency in intensity, amplitude statistical distribution, Doppler spectrum, and spatiotemporal correlation. The proposed scheme is suitable for the sea clutter simulation of shore-based radar and can also adjust the relevant parameters to extend to other types of sea clutter simulation.