Incremental Discriminant Analysis on Interval-Valued Parameters for Emitter Identification

Emitter identification has been widely recognized as one crucial issue for communication, electronic reconnaissance, and radar intelligence analysis. However, the measurements of emitter signal parameters typically take the form of uncertain intervals rather than precise values. In addition, the measurements are generally accumulated dynamically and continuously. As a result, one imminent task has become how to carry out discriminant analysis of interval-valued parameters incrementally for emitter identification. Existing machine learning approaches for interval-valued data analysis are unfit for this purpose as they generally assume a uniform distribution and are usually restricted to static data analysis. To address the above problems, we bring forward an incremental discriminant analysis method on interval-valued parameters (IDAIP) for emitter identification. Extensive experiments on both synthetic and real-life data sets have validated the efficiency and effectiveness of our method

Hierarchical Clustering of Complex Symbolic Data and Application for Emitter Identification

It is well-known that the values of symbolic variables may take various forms such as an interval, a set of stochastic measurements of some underlying patterns or qualitative multi-values and so on. However, the majority of existing work in symbolic data analysis still focuses on interval values. Although some pioneering work in stochastic pattern based symbolic data and mixture of symbolic variables has been explored, it still lacks flexibility and computation efficiency to make full use of the distinctive individual symbolic variables. Therefore, we bring forward a novel hierarchical clustering method with weighted general Jaccard distance and effective global pruning strategy for complex symbolic data and apply it to emitter identification. Extensive experiments indicate that our method has outperformed its peers in both computational efficiency and emitter identification accuracy.Peer reviewe

Geometric Surface Processing and Virtual Modeling

In this work we focus on two main topics "Geometric Surface Processing" and "Virtual Modeling". The inspiration and coordination for most of the research work contained in the thesis has been driven by the project New Interactive and Innovative Technologies for CAD (NIIT4CAD), funded by the European Eurostars Programme. NIIT4CAD has the ambitious aim of overcoming the limitations of the traditional approach to surface modeling of current 3D CAD systems by introducing new methodologies and technologies based on subdivision surfaces in a new virtual modeling framework. These innovations will allow designers and engineers to transform quickly and intuitively an idea of shape in a high-quality geometrical model suited for engineering and manufacturing purposes. One of the objective of the thesis is indeed the reconstruction and modeling of surfaces, representing arbitrary topology objects, starting from 3D irregular curve networks acquired through an ad-hoc smart-pen device. The thesis is organized in two main parts: "Geometric Surface Processing" and "Virtual Modeling". During the development of the geometric pipeline in our Virtual Modeling system, we faced many challenges that captured our interest and opened new areas of research and experimentation. In the first part, we present these theories and some applications to Geometric Surface Processing. This allowed us to better formalize and give a broader understanding on some of the techniques used in our latest advancements on virtual modeling and surface reconstruction. The research on both topics led to important results that have been published and presented in articles and conferences of international relevance

Advances in Sonar Technology

The demand to explore the largest and also one of the richest parts of our planet, the advances in signal processing promoted by an exponential growth in computation power and a thorough study of sound propagation in the underwater realm, have lead to remarkable advances in sonar technology in the last years.The work on hand is a sum of knowledge of several authors who contributed in various aspects of sonar technology. This book intends to give a broad overview of the advances in sonar technology of the last years that resulted from the research effort of the authors in both sonar systems and their applications. It is intended for scientist and engineers from a variety of backgrounds and even those that never had contact with sonar technology before will find an easy introduction with the topics and principles exposed here

A psychophysical study of the neural representation of time by striatal populations

Time is a fundamental dimension of the environment. The ability to estimate the passage of time is essential for both learning and performance of adaptive behavior in natural situations. Yet, how this ability is implemented in the brain is poorly understoo

Bayesian super-resolution with application to radar target recognition

This thesis is concerned with methods to facilitate automatic target recognition using images generated from a group of associated radar systems. Target recognition algorithms require access to a database of previously recorded or synthesized radar images for the targets of interest, or a database of features based on those images. However, the resolution of a new image acquired under non-ideal conditions may not be as good as that of the images used to generate the database. Therefore it is proposed to use super-resolution techniques to match the resolution of new images with the resolution of database images. A comprehensive review of the literature is given for super-resolution when used either on its own, or in conjunction with target recognition. A new superresolution algorithm is developed that is based on numerical Markov chain Monte Carlo Bayesian statistics. This algorithm allows uncertainty in the superresolved image to be taken into account in the target recognition process. It is shown that the Bayesian approach improves the probability of correct target classification over standard super-resolution techniques. The new super-resolution algorithm is demonstrated using a simple synthetically generated data set and is compared to other similar algorithms. A variety of effects that degrade super-resolution performance, such as defocus, are analyzed and techniques to compensate for these are presented. Performance of the super-resolution algorithm is then tested as part of a Bayesian target recognition framework using measured radar data