Optimization algorithm to decontaminate HF sky-wave returns for ionospheric slow phase-path disturbance

This paper presents an algorithm to optimize the estimation of the ionospheric slow phase-path disturbance in High-frequency sky-wave over-the-horizon radar. Based on the theoretical analysis of the radar echoes' distortion by the slow phase-path-modulation disturbance, two optimization aspects are considered. One is using the prior knowledge of the amplitude difference between the two first-order Bragg peaks to acquire optimum weighting. The other is to apply the iterative process to further enhance the spectral decontamination. Example of simulation demonstrates that this method can achieve the better desmearing Doppler spectra with single coherent integrated time data, which is helpful to detect the ship targets with higher detection probability.