The application discloses a subspace parameter iterative
estimation space-time adaptive detection method for a strong
clutter environment. In view of the problem that in a space-time adaptive
processing system, a target steering vector falls in a
clutter subspace, main and auxiliary data exist power mismatch, and existing methods are difficult to effectively maximize the marginal likelihood, the application projects the main and auxiliary data to a low-dimensional coordinate domain to obtain sufficient statistics, regards the
clutter coefficient as a hidden variable, and under two kinds of assumptions, respectively uses EM and ECME algorithms to iteratively maximize the marginal log-likelihood function, and obtains the stationary point
estimation of the clutter
covariance matrix, the power mismatch factor and the target
complex amplitude after convergence, and simultaneously constructs three detection statistics, GLRT, Rao and Wald, according to the stationary point
estimation, and compares with a pre-calibrated threshold to complete the judgment. The iterative process of the application has the guarantee of the monotone non-decreasing of the marginal log-likelihood, can effectively compensate for the main and auxiliary power mismatch, and can still maintain good
detection performance under the condition of small training samples.