Analysis of uncompensated phase error on automatic target recognition performance

Abstract

Performance of Automatic Target Recognition (ATR) algorithms for Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) systems relies heavily on the system performance and specifications of the SAR sensor. A representative multi-stage SAR ATR algorithm [1, 2] is analyzed across imagery containing phase errors in the down-range direction induced during the transmission of the radar's waveform. The degradation induced on the SAR imagery by the phase errors is measured in terms of peak phase error, Root-Mean-Square (RMS) phase error, and multiplicative noise. The ATR algorithm consists of three stages: a two-parameter CFAR, a discrimination stage to reduce false alarms, and a classification stage to identify targets in the scene. The end-to-end performance of the ATR algorithm is quantified as a function of the multiplicative noise present in the SAR imagery through Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curves. Results indicate that the performance of the ATR algorithm presented is robust over a 3dB change in multiplicative noise.