Synthetic Aperture Radar Approaches for Small Maritime Target Detection and Discrimination

RDRTec Inc. and our partner The John Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU/APL) propose to study the feasibility of an innovative model-based super-resolution Small Maritime Targets (SMT) detector that combines coherent SAR imaging technique with micro-Doppler feature discriminator and multipath exploitation to dramatically improve Probability of Detection (Pd) and reduce Probability of False Alarm (Pfa). Our objective is to assess the feasibility of: 1. preprocessing the SAR images with the model-based HDVI super-resolution imaging and the RDRTec full spectrum analyzer (FSA) algorithms to reduce speckle noise, scintillation effects, and background normalization; 2. assessing the performance of the baseline JHU/APL SAR-based detector against the preprocessed SAR images in terms of Pd/Pfa; 3. exploiting models of multipath effects and K distributed sea clutter on low altitude sea surface targets and assessing their effects on detection performance in terms of Pd/Pfa; and 4. fusing the micro-Doppler features with the SAR-based detections to reduce the Pfa. This capability will be incorporated as an upgrade to the APS-153 radar surveillance mode on the MH-60R and potentially to the currently funded Radar Collision Avoidance System (RACAS) under development by ONR and NAVAIR as a Sense and Avoid (SAA) initiative for transition into the MQ-8 and MQ-4.