Adaptive Array Processing for Targeting Radar Application

There are a number of key issues faced in performing ground moving target detection, velocity estimation and DOA estimation from an airborne radar system. These issues include effective suppression of clutter and interference in a scenario in whichconventional secondary data requirements may be prohibitive. They also accurate DOA estimation in the presence of unavoidable array calibration errors as well as optimally processing wideband data to achieve the most efficient parameter estimation andtarget detection while at the same time preserving the information content in the wideband data. Our approach for addressing each of these key problems is based on 1) developing optimal statistical processing-based algorithms for performing both themoving target detection problem and the target parameter estimation problem (velocity and direction of arrival); 2) developing a simulation environment for generating realistic radar signature data to test the algorithms; and 3) rigorously quantifyingalgorithm performance using the simulation environment and Monte-Carlo simulations.Commercial benefits of the proposed research include all applications of detection and identification of moving targets using high resolution radar systems. Theseapplications include detection and tracking of planes and ground vehicles at airports for safety purposes, detecting and tracking of cars and trucks on highways for track flow analysis and safety, detection and tracking of intruders and non-intruders forbuilding surveillance, detection and tracking of cargo handlers (fork lifts, trucks, people) in a large, congested warehouse environment for safety and efficiency, and detecting and tracking moving parts within a manufacturing plant for monitoring andcontrolling the manufacturing process. We anticipate that the need to track and to identify a large number of targets in a diverse set of environments (like those mentioned above) will grow significantly as the adaptive signal and array processingcapability improves to the point that clutter and interference are effectively mitigated and target parameters can be reliably estimated. The benefit of such a capability will impact all the commercial applications discussed above simply by making such acapability a reality.