Improved Ship and Small Boat Classification Using Hybrid Synthetic Aperture Radar - Inverse Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR-ISAR) Imaging

We propose to develop hybrid SAR/ISAR imaging to provide enhanced imageries with both plan-view and broadside profile-view of ships and hence improve the performance of ship/small craft classification. In cases that radar and targets are both moving, good radar imageries may not be obtained by either SAR or ISAR. It can be generated through the hybrid SAR/ISAR mechanisms. The basic theoretical development and verification of the hybrid SAR/ISAR processing is needed for evaluating the improvement of ship/small craft classification. A new spatiotemporal classification method can be used for improving the performance of the ship/small craft classification using hybrid SAR/ISAR imageries. We have tested its performance using X-band radar data. Compared to the spatial classifier, the overall performance of the spatiotemporal classifier is significantly improved. During Phase I, we will focus on detailed analysis and evaluation effort to assess the feasibility of hybrid SAR/ISAR for improving ship/small craft classification. In Phase I Option, we will further investigate the feasibility of generating hybrid SAR/ISAR images in real-time, and investigate the integration of hybrid SAR/ISAR imaging system and human-system interface. In Phase II, we will work on design and demonstration of a prototype hybrid SAR/ISAR imaging system for ships and small crafts.