Single-pass Barankin Estimation of scatterer height from SAR data
AssigneeRaytheon Company
InventorsGene Barry Goldstein, Matthew Paul Rosinski, Michael Wayne Whitt
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Traditional multi-pass radar techniques are not suitable for missions in which the aerial platform both identifies and prosecutes the target at termination of a single pass. A single pass method running a Barankin Estimator provides target height and variance for 3D target imaging that is suitable for war fighters, missiles, UAV, and other aerial platforms capable of nonlinear flight paths.
Claims19
A computer-implemented method of estimating 3D target information, said computer executing the steps of:
- collecting coherent radar data while flying an aerial platform in a nonlinear flight path with nonzero acceleration out of the slant plane while imaging a ground-based target;
- forming a two-dimensional synthetic aperture radar (SAR) image from the coherent radar data using a phase-preserving technique;
- identifying and masking the ground-based target in the 2D SAR image to identify target pixels;
- establishing a zero height reference plane that supports the target;
- deriving a vector of complex-valued time samples associated with one of the target pixels;
- running a Barankin Estimator on the vector of complex-valued time samples to provide a Barankin estimate {circumflex over (α)}B of a quadratic phase parameter α for the target pixel;
- and
- scaling the Barankin estimate {circumflex over (α)}B to a pixel height z relative to the zero height reference plane for the target pixel.
A computer-implemented method of estimating 3D target information, said computer executing the steps of:
- collecting coherent radar data while flying an aerial platform in a single-pass nonlinear flight path with nonzero acceleration out of the slant plane towards a ground-based target while imaging the target to prosecute the target at the termination of the single-pass;
- forming a two-dimensional synthetic aperture radar (SAR) image from the coherent radar data using a phase-preserving technique;
- identifying and masking the ground-based target in the 2D SAR image to identify target pixels;
- establishing a zero height reference plane that supports the target;
- deriving a vector of complex-valued time samples associated with a plurality of the target pixels;
- for each of said plurality of target pixels, iteratively running a Barankin Estimator on the vector of complex-valued time samples to provide a Barankin estimate {circumflex over (α)}B of a quadratic phase parameter α for the target pixel until reaching a stopping criterion;
- and
- for each of said plurality of target pixels, scaling the Barankin estimate {circumflex over (α)}B to a pixel height z relative to the zero height reference plane for the target pixel to synthesize a 3D target signature.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.