Ionospheric clutter mitigation for high-frequency surface-wave radar using two-dimensional array and beam space processing

Ionospheric clutter mitigation for high-frequency surface-wave radar using a two-dimensional array and beam space processing is presented here. The new antenna system with both azimuth and elevation angle resolving power is capable of exploiting the difference in both azimuth and elevation angles between wanted target echoes and unwanted ionospheric clutters, giving it an advantage over conventional one-dimensional linear arrays. In addition, the beam space processing can effectively preserve target echo energy during interference cancellation. Measured data from a real high-frequency surface-wave radar system is used to evaluate the performance of the new method.