Ground Moving Target Indicator (GMTI) Radar Discrimination of Combatants versus Animals in Severe Clutter

Advanced GMTI radars provide the capability to detect and track both ground vehicles and dismounted troops both in the open and under foliage. Sources of false alarms for these systems include the detection of animals because of their similar speed of movement and radar cross-section to individual and groups of dismounts. We plan to develop, test and demonstrate the feasibility to provide reliable discrimination of GMTI returns between combatant dismounts (individuals and groups) and animals in severe clutter environments using movement kinematics, terrain interaction, returns from high range and Doppler spectra resolution waveforms, and data derived characterizations. Specifically, we will demonstrate an increased level of situational awareness (reduced false alarms) by fusing multiple target discriminates using a robust data-derived Maximum Likelihood classifier. Our approach provides the following: 1) Development and evaluation of discriminates designed to enhance the classification and confidence levels of dismounts vs. animals declarations 2) A tested, reliable, extensible, adaptable framework to accumulate target discriminates to aid in the discrimination of dismounts vs. animals. 3) A low computational-cost algorithm design amenable to small lightweight platforms (Unmanned Aerial Systems)