Multi-Polarization Inverse Synthetic-Aperture Radar (ISAR) for Automated Ship and Small Craft Classification

Extensive research has shown that multi-polarization SAR data improves ship detection over single-polarization data. Via simulation, researchers have shown that polarimetric SAR and ISAR data improves ship classification. User Systems, Incorporated (USI) plans to use the polarization whitening filter (PWF) algorithm for speckle reduction and the Cameron Decomposition algorithm for feature extraction to improve ship and small craft classification using multi-polarization ISAR data. The PWF algorithm adds the polarimetric channels without the loss of resolution. The Cameron algorithm has proven to be effective in relating the polarimetric information to the physical shape of the targets. For the Phase I effort, USI plans to use available polarimetric SAR data with ships to provide preliminary results.