Low cost, high performance radar networks

A real-time radar surveillance method comprising:

• operating at least one land-based non-coherent radar sensor apparatus to detect maneuvering targets and targets of small or low radar cross-section, said radar sensor apparatus including a marine radar device, the operating of said radar sensor apparatus including digitizing samples of radar video echo signals received from said marine radar device;
• operating a software-configurable radar processor to generate target data including detection data and track data;
• and
• transmitting at least a portion of said target data over a computer network to a database.

A real-time radar surveillance system for detection and tracking of small maneuvering targets having a low radar cross-section, said system comprising:

• \
• an antenna;
• a commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) marine radar transceiver;
• a digitizer connected to said transceiver for receiving therefrom samples of radar video echo signals;
• and
• a software-configured radar processor implemented on a COTS computer for producing target data including detection data and track data,
• said radar processor including a detection processor generating said detection data and a track processor generating said track data,
• said detection processor programmed to employ a detection algorithm to reliably detect small targets of interest.
• said track processor being programmed to use association and track filtering algorithms to reliably track maneuvering targets.

A system for remotely controlling a marine radar device having a display video stream, comprising:

• radar controller hardware integrated with said marine radar device to provide at least one control signal to said marine radar device to cause said marine radar device to change its state;
• a software interface operatively connected to said controller hardware via a computer network, for enabling a user or program to operate said radar controller hardware remotely over said network;
• and
• means for capturing at least a portion of the display video stream of said marine radar device and for presenting the captured portion of said video stream to said user or said program to allow said user or said program to confirm that the state of said marine radar device changes in accordance with the operating of said software interface.

A real-time radar surveillance method for detection and tracking of small maneuvering targets having a low radar cross-section, said method comprising:

• operating a commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) marine radar transceiver to generate samples of radar video echo signals;
• digitizing said samples of radar video echo signals;
• operating a COTS computer to generate, from the digitized samples of radar video echo signals, target data including detection data and track data;
• in the course of generating said detection data, employing a detection algorithm to reliably detect small targets of interest;
• and
• in the course of generating said track data, using association and track filtering algorithms to reliably track maneuvering targets.