Performance analysis of co-located and distributed MIMO radar for micro-doppler classification

Over the past few years, the use of Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) radar has gained increased attention as a way to mitigate the degredation of micro-Doppler classification performance incurred when the aspect angle approaches 90 degrees. In this work, the efficacy of co-located MIMO radar is compared with that of distributed MIMO. The performance anaylsis is accomplished for three different classification problems: 1) discrimination of a walking group of people from a running group of people; 2) identification of individual human activities, and 3) classification of different types of walking. In the co-located configuration each radar is placed side by side so as to form a line. In the distributed configuration, the radar positions are separated to observe the subjects from different angles. Starting from the cadence velocity diagram (CVD), the Pseudo-Zernike moments based features are extracted because of their robustness with respect to unwanted scalar and angular dependencies. Two different approaches to integrate the features obtained from multi-aspect data are compared: concatenation and principal component analysis (PCA). Results show that a distributed MIMO configuration and use of PCA to fuse multiperspective features yields higher classification performance as compared to a co-located configuration or feature vector concatenation

Micro-doppler-based in-home aided and unaided walking recognition with multiple radar and sonar systems

Published in IET Radar, Sonar and Navigation. Online first 21/06/2016.The potential for using micro-Doppler signatures as a basis for distinguishing between aided and unaided gaits is considered in this study for the purpose of characterising normal elderly gait and assessment of patient recovery. In particular, five different classes of mobility are considered: normal unaided walking, walking with a limp, walking using a cane or tripod, walking with a walker, and using a wheelchair. This presents a challenging classification problem as the differences in micro-Doppler for these activities can be quite slight. Within this context, the performance of four different radar and sonar systems – a 40 kHz sonar, a 5.8 GHz wireless pulsed Doppler radar mote, a 10 GHz X-band continuous wave (CW) radar, and a 24 GHz CW radar – is evaluated using a broad range of features. Performance improvements using feature selection is addressed as well as the impact on performance of sensor placement and potential occlusion due to household objects. Results show that nearly 80% correct classification can be achieved with 10 s observations from the 24 GHz CW radar, whereas 86% performance can be achieved with 5 s observations of sonar

Real time Adaptive Approach for Hidden Targets Shape Identification using through Wall Imaging System

In Through-wall Imaging (TWI) system, shape-based identification of the hidden target behind the wall made of any dielectric material like brick, cement, concrete, dry plywood, plastic and Teflon, etc. is one of the most challenging tasks. However, it is very important to understand that the performance of TWI systems is limited by the presence of clutter due to the wall and also transmitted frequency range. Therefore, the quality of obtained image is blurred and very difficult to identify the shape of targets. In the present paper, a shape-based image identification technique with the help of a neural network and curve-fitting approach is proposed to overcome the limitation of existing techniques. A real time experimental analysis of TWI has been carried out using the TWI radar system to collect and process the data, with and without targets. The collected data is trained by a neural network for shape identification of targets behind the wall in any orientation and then threshold by a curve-fitting method for smoothing the background. The neural network has been used to train the noisy data i.e. raw data and noise free data i.e. pre-processed data. The shape of hidden targets is identified by using the curve fitting method with the help of trained neural network data and real time data. The results obtained by the developed technique are promising for target identification at any orientation

Continuous human motion recognition with a dynamic range-Doppler trajectory method based on FMCW radar

Radar-based human motion recognition is crucial for many applications, such as surveillance, search and rescue operations, smart homes, and assisted living. Continuous human motion recognition in real-living environment is necessary for practical deployment, i.e., classification of a sequence of activities transitioning one into another, rather than individual activities. In this paper, a novel dynamic range-Doppler trajectory (DRDT) method based on the frequency-modulated continuous-wave (FMCW) radar system is proposed to recognize continuous human motions with various conditions emulating real-living environment. This method can separate continuous motions and process them as single events. First, range-Doppler frames consisting of a series of range-Doppler maps are obtained from the backscattered signals. Next, the DRDT is extracted from these frames to monitor human motions in time, range, and Doppler domains in real time. Then, a peak search method is applied to locate and separate each human motion from the DRDT map. Finally, range, Doppler, radar cross section (RCS), and dispersion features are extracted and combined in a multidomain fusion approach as inputs to a machine learning classifier. This achieves accurate and robust recognition even in various conditions of distance, view angle, direction, and individual diversity. Extensive experiments have been conducted to show its feasibility and superiority by obtaining an average accuracy of 91.9% on continuous classification

Feature diversity for optimized human micro-doppler classification using multistatic radar

This paper investigates the selection of different combinations of features at different multistatic radar nodes, depending on scenario parameters, such as aspect angle to the target and signal-to-noise ratio, and radar parameters, such as dwell time, polarisation, and frequency band. Two sets of experimental data collected with the multistatic radar system NetRAD are analysed for two separate problems, namely the classification of unarmed vs potentially armed multiple personnel, and the personnel recognition of individuals based on walking gait. The results show that the overall classification accuracy can be significantly improved by taking into account feature diversity at each radar node depending on the environmental parameters and target behaviour, in comparison with the conventional approach of selecting the same features for all nodes

Interferometric Radar for Activity Recognition and Benchmarking in Different Radar Geometries

Radar micro-Doppler signatures have been proposed for human activity classification for surveillance and ambient assisted living in healthcare-related applications. A known issue is the performance reduction when the target is moving tangentially to the line-of-sight of the radar. Multiple techniques have been proposed to address this, such as multistatic radar and to some extent, interferometric radar. A simulator is presented to generate synthetic data representative of 8 different radar systems (including configurations as monostatic, multistatic, and interferometric) to quantify classification performances as a function of aspect angles and deployment geometries. This simulator allows an unbiased performance evaluation of the different radar systems. 6 human activities are considered with signatures originating from motion-captured data of 14 different subjects. The results show that interferometric radar data with fusion outperforms the other methods with over 97.6% accuracy consistently across all aspect angles, as well as the potential for simplified indoor deployment

Radar and RGB-depth sensors for fall detection: a review

This paper reviews recent works in the literature on the use of systems based on radar and RGB-Depth (RGB-D) sensors for fall detection, and discusses outstanding research challenges and trends related to this research field. Systems to detect reliably fall events and promptly alert carers and first responders have gained significant interest in the past few years in order to address the societal issue of an increasing number of elderly people living alone, with the associated risk of them falling and the consequences in terms of health treatments, reduced well-being, and costs. The interest in radar and RGB-D sensors is related to their capability to enable contactless and non-intrusive monitoring, which is an advantage for practical deployment and users’ acceptance and compliance, compared with other sensor technologies, such as video-cameras, or wearables. Furthermore, the possibility of combining and fusing information from The heterogeneous types of sensors is expected to improve the overall performance of practical fall detection systems. Researchers from different fields can benefit from multidisciplinary knowledge and awareness of the latest developments in radar and RGB-D sensors that this paper is discussing

Information-Theoretic Feature Selection for Human Micro-Doppler Signature Classification

Micro-Doppler signatures can be used not only to recognize different targets, such as vehicles, helicopters, animals, and people, but also to classify varying activities, e.g., walking, running, creeping, and crawling. For this purpose, a plethora of features have been proposed in the literature; however, dozens of features are not required to achieve high classification performance. The topic of feature selection has been under addressed in micro-Doppler studies. Moreover, the optimal feature set is not static but varies under different operational conditions, such as signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), dwell time, and aspect angle. The mutual information of features relative to the classification problem at hand offers a measure for assessing the efficacy of features and thus sets a unique framework for feature selection. In this paper, information-theoretic (IT) feature selection techniques are used to identify essential features and minimize the total number of required features, while maximizing classification performance. It is seen that, although some features are consistently preferred, others are never selected. Results show that for SNRs over 10 dB and at least 1 s of data, this approach yields 96% correct classification when the target moves along the radar line-of-sight and over 65% correct classification for tangential motion.This work was supported in part by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) under Project 113E105 and in part by the European Union Seventh Framework Programme under Project PIRG-GA-2012-268276

Behind-wall target detection using micro-doppler effects

Abstract: During the last decade technology for seeing through walls and through dense vegetation has interested many researchers. This technology offers excellent opportunities for military and police applications, though applications are not limited to the military and police; they go beyond those applications to where detecting a target behind an obstacle is needed. To be able to disclose the location and velocity of obscured targets, scientists’ resort to electromagnetic wave propagation. Thus, through-the-wall radar (TWR) is technology used to propagate electromagnetic waves towards a target through a wall. Though TWR is a promising technology, it has been reported that TWR imaging (TWRI) poses a range of ambiguities in target characterisation and detection. These ambiguities are related to the thickness and electric properties of walls. It has been reported that the mechanical and electric properties of the wall defocus the target image rendered by the radar. The defocusing problem is the phenomenon of displacing the target away from its true location when the image is rendered. Thus, the operator of the TWR will have a wrong position, not the real position of the target. Defocusing is not the only problem observed while the signal is travelling through the wall. Target classification, wall modelling and others are areas that need investigation...D.Ing. (Electrical and Electronic Engineering