A Method to Adaptively Compensate for Ionospheric Layer Movement in HF Sky Wave Radar Systems

The ionospheric layer movement produces frequency modulation for the HF sky-wave radar signal such that the sea clutter is broadened in Doppler domain. Compensation for the modulation is significant before radar coherent integration. This paper addresses a modified adaptive short time Fourier transform (MASTFT) and proposes a MASTFT-based compensation method. Experimental tests are constructed by inducing the contamination of simulative traveling ionospheric disturbance (TID) to the undisturbed data collected by high frequency surface wave radar (HFSWR). The test results show that the proposed method can effectively compensate even for rapid TID and has good adaptability for different ionospheric frequency modulations.