To meet the new higher requirements from remote sensing development

radar altimeter is being extended to more challenging applications

such as land survey and sea ice survey.So

radar altimeter must be adaptive to complex environments and one of the keys is how to build a kind of robust tracking algorithm

which is quite different from those for ocean applications.In the context

as a basis of studying robust tracking algorithm

following general analysis of radar altimeter echo

OCOG algorithm will be introduced.Through theorelical analysis and emulation test

OCOG is justified to be an excellent robust tracking algorithm for radar altimeter

and its shortcomings is also discussed.Thus it may help the following advanced studies on robust radar altimeter tracking algorithm design.