Fluctuation Loss and Diversity Gain for In?Phase Systems with Post?Detection Integration

This paper presents a simple method for determining the losses resulting from detecting only the in-phase component of the complex signal vector returned from a Rayleigh-distributed target. A simple rule is given in terms of the fluctuation loss and integration gain of square-law-detected pulses. The integration improvement for the in-phase channel is given for both slow and fast fluctuating Rayleigh targets. The loss associated with failure to use the quadrature signal component is basic in that it accounts for only one Gaussian sample and, therefore, one degree of freedom. The loss incurred with one square-law-detected return as normally implemented in radar receivers represents two degrees of freedom. It is well known that the system performance improves, approaching that for the constant target, with increasing degrees of freedom of the received data. This paper is an extension of earlier work in that it relates previously computed data to a simple rule.