Analysis of Distribution Using Graphical Goodness of Fit for Airborne SAR Sea-Clutter Data

• Published in: IEEE transactions on geoscience and remote sensing 2017-10, Vol.55 (10), p.5719-5728
• Main Authors: Xin, Zhihui, Liao, Guisheng, Yang, Zhiwei, Zhang, Yuhong, Dang, Hongxing
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Airborne radar; Airborne remote sensing; Clutter; Data; Data models; Detection; Distribution; Goodness of fit; Goodness of fit (GoF); graphical representation; Graphical representations; Histograms; Radar; Radar data; Radar detection; Radar targets; Rayleigh distribution; SAR (radar); Scattering; sea clutter; Sea surface; Statistical analysis; statistical distribution; Statistical methods; Statistical tests; Statistics; Surface clutter; Synthetic aperture radar; Target detection; Variation; Weibull distribution
• ISSN: 0196-2892; 1558-0644
• DOI: 10.1109/TGRS.2017.2712700

For radar target detection, the clutter distribution model needs to be identified first. The goodness of fit (GoF) between the original data and the assumed distribution can be used to choose the proper distribution model. Generally, the GoF is obtained using data histogram and theoretical distribution curve, and then the distribution model is judged via GoF. However, when the sample number is small, the histogram is rough and fluctuating, affecting the analysis of GoF. For the small sample, the graphical characteristic is obtained with the sample data to choose the most fitting distribution to the data in this paper. The graphical characteristic is acquired by a simpler process, that is, the original data are directly set as the test statistics, avoiding computing and sorting of other statistics. In this paper, the real airborne circular synthetic aperture radar data under different scan angles are analyzed using the GoF corresponding to histogram and graphical GoF, respectively. The results show that when the sea-clutter data histogram is close to two distributions, a more fitting distribution model may not be obtained by traditional GoF, but can be acquired by graphical representation. In addition, the sea data with different sight angles have different match properties. It is seen that the sea data are closer to the Rayleigh distribution in side-looking mode than that in big squint-angle mode, while the Weibull distribution and K distribution show equal fitting performance to sea clutter under variant radar sight angles.