Target Parameter Estimation Method Based on Information Theory

Abstract

As the target detection environment becomes more and more complicated, passive radar has gradually become the focus of researchers' attention because of its advantage of strong detection concealment. In this paper, we propose the parameter information estimation method for passive radar by spatial information theory. First, the concept of spatial information is proposed through the Shannon information theory, secondly, the theoretical formula and closed expression for spatial information are derived from the definition of mutual information, finally, the entropy error (EE) in the passive radar is defined to further evaluate the proposed parameter estimation method. We focus on the theoretical derivation of the spatial information quantity, the concept of EE and its relation to the mean squared error (MSE). Then, to demonstrate the performance of the proposed method in passive radar, extensive numerical simulation work is carried out. The results indicate that radar distance information can be quantified by bits, and the EE method is a better choice in low and medium the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) conditions compared with the traditional MSE method. In this paper, the basic target parameter estimation problem of passive radar is solved, and the spatial information theory system can be further developed and improved in the future.