© 1994 IEEE. Examines the problem of detecting a known target in clutter and shows that a multiresolution-based detector significantly outperforms a more conventional single-resolution detector. The authors then apply a sampling strategy that allows one to choose, for each fixed n, those n resolutions that maximize detection performance. This optimal multiresolution sampling strategy suggests that wavelet or wavelet packet decompositions which typically use dyadic or triadic resolution splits are not necessarily optimal bases for coherent radar signature representation.