ECCM Strategies for Radar Systems against Smart Noise-like Jammers

In this paper, we address the problem of detecting a Noise-Like Jammer (NLJ) that does not quickly transmit all the available power but it gradually increases the transmitted power. This control strategy would prevent conventional electronic counter-countermeasures from revealing the presence of a noise power discontinuity in the window under test. As a consequence, the radar system under attack becomes blind requiring a reaction by an expert operator. In order to face such a situation, we devise two innovative NLJ detection architectures by assuming at the design stage specific models for the NLJ power variation. The first model is based on a linear variation law over the observation time, whereas in the second model, the NLJ power experiences unconstrained fluctuations in the window under test. Under these hypotheses, we resort to ad hoc modifications of the generalized likelihood ratio test, where the unknown parameters are replaced by suitable estimates obtained through iterative procedures. The performance analysis, carried out using synthetic data, shows the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed detectors over the conventional approach.