A MAP Estimator for Target Position Estimation in High Resolution Radars

In this paper a MAP estimator is derived for target position estimation in high resolution radars where the events of backscatters, i.e., reflections, from extended targets and clutter are modeled as non-homogenous Poisson process. Performance of the proposed MAP estimator has been compared to that of the maximum likelihood estimator for the same model and also to that of the most commonly used peak picking estimators, namely, the maximum point and interpolation. Through simulations, it has been demonstrated that, in the case of having prior distribution information about real target range, MAP estimator significantly reduces target position estimation errors.