Does a more robust CFAR detector survive a Gaussian-clutter radar simulator?

What it found

Four window detectors (cell-averaging, order-statistic at ranks 3N/4 and N/2, log-t) are calibrated in a Gaussian-clutter twin and deployed in gamma-textured clutter. None is meaningfully more robust: at design 1e−4 the false-alarm inflation is 30–44× at ν=2 and 8–9× at ν=5, and the ranking flips with ν and design rate. A known-scale oracle with no window noise inflates 2.88× at 1e−2, ν=2 against cell-averaging’s 3.02×, so most of the error is the test cell’s own texture, which reference cells cannot see. After repairing each threshold to the design rate, cell-averaging detects best everywhere (Rayleigh target, 20 dB, ν=2: 0.758 vs 0.744, 0.732, 0.703), and the twin’s promised detection probability is overstated (0.70 vs 0.43 at 15 dB). No interfering targets, so order-statistic detectors are tested away from their home ground. Stylised.

A figure from its own output

Paper, code and results

• README and method
• White paper
• Experiments and results
• Code
• Tests

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Produced with AI assistance (Claude). Results are from the code in this repository and are simulated or stylised unless the abstract says otherwise; nothing here implies affiliation with or endorsement by any lab, researcher or company cited. MIT licensed.