Which techniques are used to reduce ground clutter in radar displays?

• A. Increasing transmitter power
• B. Clutter filters and elevation processing
• C. Decreasing receiver gain
• D. Expanding the antenna size

Answer: (B)

Ground clutter suppression on radar displays relies on methods that specifically target unwanted ground returns while preserving true targets. Clutter filters remove stationary or slow-moving echoes by using Doppler or amplitude characteristics, reducing the persistent ground signals that clutter the display. Elevation processing adds a vertical dimension to discrimination, using elevation information to separate low-altitude ground clutter from higher-altitude objects and applying gating to suppress those ground echoes. Together, these techniques directly reduce clutter without indiscriminately weakening all echoes. Increasing transmitter power would raise both clutter and targets, decreasing receiver gain would cut all echoes rather than selectively reducing clutter, and expanding antenna size changes beam properties without a direct clutter suppression mechanism.