Convex Optimization‐Based Rotation Parameter Estimation Using Micro‐Doppler

Abstract

We present a novel algorithm that can determine rotation-related parameters of a target using FMCW (frequency modulated continuous wave) radars, not utilizing inertia information of the target. More specifically, the proposed algorithm estimates the angular velocity vector of a target as a function of time, as well as the distances of scattering points in the wing tip from the rotation axis, just by analyzing Doppler spectrograms obtained from three or more radars. The obtained parameter values will be useful to classify targets such as hostile warheads or missiles for real-time operation, or to analyze the trajectory of targets under test for the instrumentation radar operation. The proposed algorithm is based on the convex optimization to obtain the rotation-related parameters. The performance of the proposed algorithm is assessed through Monte Carlo simulations. Estimation performance of the proposed algorithm depends on the target and radar geometry and improves as the number of iterations of the convex optimization steps increases.