Study of Moving Targets Tracking Methods for a Multi-Beam Tracking System in Terahertz Band

Abstract

This paper studies the methods of moving targets tracking based on a multi-beam tracking system in terahertz (THz) band, which is an initial attempt in this field. Taking the advantage of forming high resolution range profile of THz radar, a target geometric center tracking method is developed at first. However, the tracking performance is deteriorated by the severe angular glint and system disturbance. A further analysis on the experiment data finds a statistical correlation between the angular glint and the normalized amplitude variance, which is exploited to identify and exclude instable scatterers. A non-linear angular discrimination function is also established to deal with the anomalous measurement of the radar. Finally, an instable point exclusion method and a nonlinear angular discrimination method are proposed and combined to develop an improved tracking method, which can suppress angular glint and mitigate measuring perturbation, hence promoting the tracking performance. Proof-of-principle experiments are performed with a multi-beam tracking system working in 0.2 THz band. Tracking results of different targets demonstrate that the improved tracking method can effectively eliminate the tracking failure and significantly promote the tracking accuracy.