Adaptive Radar Detection of a Subspace Signal Embedded in Subspace Structured plus Gaussian Interference Via Invariance

This paper deals with adaptive radar detection of a subspace signal competing with two sources of interference. The former is Gaussian with unknown covariance matrix and accounts for the joint presence of clutter plus thermal noise. The latter is structured as a subspace signal and models coherent pulsed jammers impinging on the radar antenna. The problem is solved via the Principle of Invariance which is based on the identification of a suitable group of transformations leaving the considered hypothesis testing problem invariant. A maximal invariant statistic, which completely characterizes the class of invariant decision rules and significantly compresses the original data domain, as well as its statistical characterization are determined. Thus, the existence of the optimum invariant detector is addressed together with the design of practically implementable invariant decision rules. At the analysis stage, the performance of some receivers belonging to the new invariant class is established through the use of analytic expressions

Unit Circle Roots Based Sensor Array Signal Processing

As technology continues to rapidly evolve, the presence of sensor arrays and the algorithms processing the data they generate take an ever-increasing role in modern human life. From remote sensing to wireless communications, the importance of sensor signal processing cannot be understated. Capon\u27s pioneering work on minimum variance distortionless response (MVDR) beamforming forms the basis of many modern sensor array signal processing (SASP) algorithms. In 2004, Steinhardt and Guerci proved that the roots of the polynomial corresponding to the optimal MVDR beamformer must lie on the unit circle, but this result was limited to only the MVDR. This dissertation contains a new proof of the unit circle roots property which generalizes to other SASP algorithms. Motivated by this result, a unit circle roots constrained (UCRC) framework for SASP is established and includes MVDR as well as single-input single-output (SISO) and distributed multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) radar moving target detection. Through extensive simulation examples, it will be shown that the UCRC-based SASP algorithms achieve higher output gains and detection probabilities than their non-UCRC counterparts. Additional robustness to signal contamination and limited secondary data will be shown for the UCRC-based beamforming and target detection applications, respectively

Auto-regressive model based polarimetric adaptive detection scheme part I: Theoretical derivation and performance analysis

This paper deals with the problem of target detection in coherent radar systems exploiting polarimetric diversity. We resort to a parametric approach and we model the disturbance affecting the data as a multi-channel autoregressive (AR) process. Following this model, a new polarimetric adaptive detector is derived, which aims at improving the target detection capability while relaxing the requirements on the training data size and the computational burden with respect to existing solutions. A complete theoretical characterization of the asymptotic performance of the derived detector is provided, using two different target fluctuation models. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is shown against simulated data, in comparison with alternative existing solutions

Learning Strategies for Radar Clutter Classification

In this paper, we address the problem of classifying clutter returns in order to partition them into statistically homogeneous subsets. The classification procedure relies on a model for the observables including latent variables that is solved by the expectation-maximization algorithm. The derivations are carried out by accounting for three different cases for the structure of the clutter covariance matrix. A preliminary performance analysis highlights that the proposed technique is a viable means to cluster clutter returns over the range.Comment: 12 pages, 13 figure

Order estimation and discrimination between stationary and time-varying (TVAR) autoregressive models

Copyright © 2007 IEEEFor a set of T independent observations of the same N-variate correlated Gaussian process, we derive a method of estimating the order of an autoregressive (AR) model of this process, regardless of its stationary or time-varying nature. We also derive a test to discriminate between stationary AR models of order m,AR(m), and time-varying autoregressive models of order m,TVAR(m). We demonstrate that within this technique the number T of independent identically distributed data samples required for order estimation and discrimination just exceeds the maximum possible order mmax, which in many cases is significantly fewer than the dimension of the problem NYuri I. Abramovich, Nicholas K. Spencer, and Michael D. E. Turle

Design of Customized Adaptive Radar Detectors in the CFAR Feature Plane

The paper addresses the design of adaptive radar detectors with desired behavior, in Gaussian disturbance with unknown statistics. Specifically, based on detection probability specifications for chosen signal-to-noise ratios and steering vector mismatch levels, a methodology for the design of customized constant false alarm rate (CFAR) detectors is devised in a suitable feature plane obtained from two maximal invariant statistics. To overcome the analytical and numerical intractability of the resulting optimization problem, a novel general reduced-complexity algorithm is developed, which is shown to be effective in providing a feasible solution (i.e., fulfilling a constraint on the probability of false alarm) while controlling the behavior under both matched and mismatched conditions, so enabling the design of fully customized adaptive CFAR detectors