Polarimetric Signatures of Moving Automotive Vehicles Based on H/A/α-decomposition: Preliminary Results with PARSAX Radar Data

Abstract

Polarimetric radar responses from moving automotive targets are studied aiming at target classification using the polarimetric H/A/α-decomposition technique. A signal- and data processing chain has been proposed for the detection and tracking of targets in a multi-target environment in the range-Doppler domain. Polarimetric information of the vehicles is collected during tracking and is analyzed by the H/A/α-decomposition technique. Employing both time averaging and spatial averaging of the statistical coherency matrix, the polarimetric signatures of both vehicles and static clutter have been presented in the two-dimensional H/α-plane. It has been found that the spatial averaging approach results in a polarimetric signature that can be very helpful to distinguish automotive vehicles from static clutter.