A study of extended targets radar detector

Modern wideband radars have enabled a sub-meter range resolution, thus providing additional possibilities for target detection and classification. However, the target detection in such high resolution mode has a few differences w.r.t. the detection in low range resolution mode. Thus, the targets of interest (aircrafts, cars) cannot be considered as point-like anymore; instead, they are spread in a few adjacent range cells. This phenomenon has to be considered to improve radar performance. To address this problem a few techniques of extended target detection have been recently proposed, however, they generally assume target range extent to be known. The aim of this study is to analyse the performance of existing detectors and propose techniques for reliable estimation of the target range extent.

Assignment

Sub-tasks:

• Overview of signal and clutter models in high resolution radar. Formulation of the appropriate models and their numerical simulation according to defined models [1]. Literature overview about radar CFAR detectors. Analysis of existing extended target detectors and target range extent estimation;
• Formulation of the particular technique for target range extent estimation and its statistical analysis;
• Simulations of existing and proposed techniques [2, 3]; performance assessment by numerical simulations. Semi-experimental data processing from PARSAX radar in its high resolution mode (1.5 m range resolution) [4].

References:

• [1] F. Le Chevalier, Principles of Radar and Sonar Signal Processing Norwood: MA: Artech House, 2002.
• [2] P. K. Hughes, "A High-Resolution Radar Detection Strategy," Aerospace and Electronic Systems, IEEE Transactions on, vol. AES-19, pp. 663-667, 1983.
• [3] A. De Maio and M. Greco., Modern Radar Detection Theory. SciTech Pub., 2016.
• [4] http://parsax.weblog.tudelft.nl/

Requirements

The final report will describe the methodology, description of the proposed/analysed techniques, together with their performance analysis.

Contact

Last modified: 2020-09-23