4.  Conclusion

The specificity of maritime surveillance radar lies in its environment and the signals it returns, whether from targets interacting with the water surface, or from sea clutter. These two technical points have been widely discussed.

We have detailed the specific technical principles implemented in the case of maritime target detection. Three main detection principles have been examined:

• long-range detection in moderate seas ;

• detection in rough seas (heavy seas) ;

• the contribution of Doppler techniques.

On the most modern products, high clutter detection modes make the most of sophisticated turn-to-antenna correlation algorithms, as well as "tracking before detection". The particular properties of sea clutter make...