Target length estimation of target by scattering center number estimation methods

Abstract

In this paper, we introduce a method to improve the accuracy of the length estimation of targets using a radar. The HRRP (High Resolution Range Profile) obtained from a received radar signal represents the one-dimensional scattering characteristics of a target, and peaks of the HRRP means the scattering centers that strongly scatter electromagnetic waves. By using the extracted scattering centers, the downrange length of the target, which is the length in the RLOS (Radar Line of Sight), can be estimated, and the real length of the target should be estimated considering the angle between the target and the RLOS. In order to improve the accuracy of the length estimation, parametric estimation methods, which extract scattering centers more exactly than the method using the HRRP, can be used. The parametric estimation method is applied after the number of scattering centers is determined, and is thus greatly affected by the accuracy of the number of scattering centers. In this paper, in order to improve the accuracy of target length estimation, the number of scattering centers is estimated by using AIC (Akaike Information Criteria), MDL (Minimum Descriptive Length), and GLE (Gerschgorin Likelihood Estimators), which are the source number estimation methods based on information theoretic criteria. Using the ESPRIT algorithm as a parameter estimation method, a length estimation simulation was performed for simple target CAD models, and the GLE method represented excellent performance in estimating the number of scattering centers and estimating the target length.