Radar Problem Research Articles

Low-Resolution Quantized Precoding for Multiple-Input Multiple-Output Dual-Functional Radar–Communication Systems Used for Target Sensing

Dual-functional radar–communication systems are extensively employed for the detection and control of unmanned aerial vehicle groups and play crucial roles in scenario monitoring. In this study, we address the downlink precoding problem in large-scale multi-user multiple-input multiple-output dual-function radar–communication systems equipped with low-resolution quantized digital-to-analog converters. To tackle this issue, we develop a weighted optimization framework that minimizes the mean squared error between the transmitted symbols and their estimates while satisfying specific radar performance requirements. Due to the complexity introduced by discrete constraints, we decompose the original problem into three sub-problems to reduce computational burden. Furthermore, we propose a dynamic projection refinement algorithm within the alternating direction method of multiplier framework to efficiently solve these sub-problems. Numerical experiments demonstrate that our proposed method outperforms existing state-of-the-art techniques, particularly in terms of bit error rate in low signal-to-noise ratio scenarios.

Advanced Methods for MLE of Toeplitz Structured Covariance Matrices With Applications to Radar Problems

Advanced Methods for MLE of Toeplitz Structured Covariance Matrices With Applications to Radar Problems

Multiple-Input Multiple-Output Synthetic Aperture Radar Waveform and Filter Design in the Presence of Uncertain Interference Environment

Multiple-input multiple-output synthetic aperture radar (MIMO-SAR) anti-jamming waveform design relies on accurate prior information about the interference. However, it is difficult to obtain accurate prior knowledge about uncertain intermittent sampling repeater jamming (ISRJ), leading to a severe decline in the detection performance of MIMO-SAR systems. Therefore, this article studies the robust joint design problem of MIMO radar transmit waveform and filter against uncertain ISRJ. We characterize two categories of uncertain interference, including sample length uncertainty and sample-time uncertainty, modeled as Gaussian distribution in different range bins. Based on the uncertain interference model, we formulate the maximizing SINR as a figure of merit, which is a non-convex quadratic optimization problem under specific waveform constraints. Based on the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) framework, a novel joint design algorithm of waveform and filter is proposed. In order to improve the convergence performance of ADMM, the difference in convex functions (DC) programming is applied to the ADMM iterations framework to solve the problem of waveform energy inequality constraint. Finally, numerical results demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed method, compared to the existing methods that utilize deterministic interference models in the uncertain ISRJ environment. Moreover, the spaceborne SAR real scene imaging simulations are conducted to evaluate the anti-ISRJ performance.

Long-Time Coherent Integration Method for Passive Bistatic Radar Using Frequency Hopping Signals.

Long-time coherent integration using frequency hopping signals is a challenging problem for passive bistatic radar due to its frequency hopping characteristics. Apart from range walk, range curve, and Doppler frequency migration, Doppler diffusion caused by frequency hopping characteristics occurs within the observation time, which also lowers the detection performance. To deal with this problem, a novel coherent integration method for frequency hopping signals based on passive bistatic radar is proposed in this paper. In this novel method, range curve and range walk are eliminated by applying generalized Keystone transform. Then, Doppler frequency migration caused by the target's acceleration is compensated for by a parameter search with a designed search scope. Finally, Doppler frequency migration caused by frequency hopping characteristics is compensated for by designing a new acceleration compensation function and a revised rotation factor for Fourier transform. Since migration effects caused by frequency hopping characteristics are considered and compensated for when using frequency hopping signals, the weak target echo can be better integrated in the observation time compared to when using the existing methods. The simulation results and performance analysis illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Improved Least Squares Phase Unwrapping Method Based on Chebyshev Filter

Phase unwrapping of high phase noise and steep phase gradient has always been a challenging problem in interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR), in which case the least squares (LS) phase unwrapping method often suffers from significant unwrapping errors. Therefore, this paper proposes an improved LS phase unwrapping method based on the Chebyshev filter, which solves the problem of incomplete unwrapping and errors under high phase noise and steep phase gradient. Firstly, the steep gradient phase is transformed into multiple flat gradient phases using the Chebyshev filter. Then the flat gradient phases are unwrapped using the LS unwrapping method. Finally, the final unwrapped phase is obtained by iteratively adding the unwrapping results of the flat gradient phases. The simulation results show that the proposed method has the best accuracy and stability compared to LS, PCUA, and RPUA. In the real InSAR phase unwrapping experiment, the RMSE of the proposed method is reduced by 63.91%, 35.38%, and 54.39% compared to LS, PCUA, and RPUA. The phase unwrapping time is reduced by 62.86% and 11.64% compared to PCUA and RPUA.

A modified algebraic method of mathematical signal processing in radar problems

A new method for approximate solution of ill-posed inverse problems of reconstructing images of objects with angular resolution exceeding the Rayleigh criterion is proposed and justified, i.e. with super resolution. Angular super-resolution allows you to obtain images of objects with increased clarity and distinguish previously invisible details of images of complex objects. In addition, on this basis, the probability of correct solutions to problems of object recognition and identification increases. Mathematically, the problem is reduced to solving the linear Fredholm integral equation of the first kind of convolution type. Solutions are sought with additional conditions in the form of restrictions on the location and size of the desired radiation source, which makes it possible to regularize the problem. The method is a development of one of the parameterization methods the algebraic method. The solution is sought in the form of a representation of the desired function in the area where the source is located in the form of a series expansion over the input sequence of orthogonal functions with unknown coefficients. Thus, the inverse problem is parameterized and reduced to searching for expansion coefficients. The presented method is based on the use of a priori information about the localization area of the radiation source, or on an estimate of the location and size of this area obtained by scanning the viewing sector with a goniometer system. Using zero values of the function describing the source outside this region, for systems based on antenna arrays it is possible to find tens and even hundreds of expansion coefficients of the desired function in a Fourier series. The solution is constructed in the form of an iterative process with a consistent increase in the number of functions used in the expansion until the solution remains stable. The adequacy and stability of the solutions was verified during numerical experiments using a mathematical model. The results of numerical studies show that the presented methods of digital processing of received signals make it possible to achieve an effective angular resolution 3–10 times higher than the Rayleigh criterion. The proposed method makes it possible to miniaturize the antenna system without degrading its characteristics. Compared to known ones, it is relatively simple, which allows it to be used by systems in real time.

Traffic Target Location Estimation Based on Tensor Decomposition in Intelligent Transportation System

As the safety problems and economic losses caused by traffic accidents are becoming more and more serious, intelligent transportation system (ITS) came into being. After the outbreak of COVID-19, how to achieve effective traffic scheduling and macro command under less contact has attracted more attention. Therefore, the location estimation of traffic objectives is a key issue. In the developed framework, for the target parameter estimation in traffic, frequency diversity array multiple-input multiple-output (FDA-MIMO) radar is introduced into ITS, and tensor decomposition is used to process transportation big data (TBD) to improve the real-time performance of target location estimation. Unfortunately, spatial colored noise and array gain-phase error will affect the performance of FDA-MIMO radar in ITS. An algorithm that can solve the angle-range estimation problem of FDA-MIMO radar in the co-existence of array gain-phase error and spatial colored noise is proposed. Firstly, the four-dimensional tensor is constructed by using the temporal un-correlation of colored noise. Therefore, the influence of colored noise in ITS is removed. Secondly, the direction matrix containing target information is obtained by parallel factor (PARAFAC) decomposition. For the array gain-phase error, the optimization problem is constructed, and the Lagrange multiplier is employed to calculate the optimal solution. The effect of gain-phase error is eliminated by utilizing the optimal solution and the direction matrices. Finally, the location information of motor vehicle is achieved by calculating the solution of least square (LS) fitting. The developed scheme can achieve the location information of motor vehicles in the co-existence of array gain-phase error and spatial colored noise. Comprehensive numerical experiments illustrate that the developed scheme in ITS can efficiently obtain the location information of motor vehicles.

Polarization microwave correlation imaging method based on orthogonal complement space

AbstractCurrently, microwave correlation imaging (MCI) is regarded as an important method to address the forward‐looking imaging problem in radar. The key step of this method is to form a spatio‐temporal two‐dimensional random radiation field through various means. However, the current methods do not consider the polarization domain, which is an important dimension of electromagnetic signals. The existing research mainly focuses on using polarized antenna elements, without incorporating polarization information into the imaging system. To fill this gap, this letter proposes the polarization microwave correlation imaging (PMCI) based on the orthogonal complement space, which performs instantaneous polarization measurements (IPM) while correlating imaging of the target. Through simulation analysis, this method can further improve the quality and anti‐interference ability of MCI. Moreover, under the condition of low time‐frequency product, the peak sidelobe level (PSL) and isolation of this method are approximately 3.5 dB and 12.5 dB higher than those of traditional instantaneous polarization measurement methods (TIPM).

Sparse Microwave Imaging Algorithm Based on L1/2 Threshold Iteration and an Approximate Observation Operator

Aiming at the problems of synthetic-aperture radar (SAR), such as high sampling rate and vulnerability to noise interference in imaging, a sparse reconstruction algorithm based on approximate observation and L1/2 threshold iteration is proposed in this paper. To solve the problem of the large dimension and high computational complexity of the measurement matrix, a sparse reconstruction model based on approximate observation is constructed, and a threshold iterative algorithm to rapidly solve the L1/2 regularization problem is introduced, which can realize sparse signal reconstruction with fewer sampling data and quickly solve the problem. The simulation results of point targets and the measured data of spaceborne SAR show that compared with the traditional matched filtering algorithm and L1 threshold algorithm based on a two-step iteration, the proposed sparse reconstruction algorithm has a faster iteration speed and improves the image quality.

On Integrated Sensing and Communication Waveforms With Tunable PAPR

We present a novel approach to the problem of dual-functional radar and communication (DFRC) waveform design with adjustable peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR), while minimizing the multi-user communication interference and maintaining a similarity constraint towards a radar chirp signal. The approach is applicable to generic radar chirp signals and for different constellation sizes. We formulate the waveform design problem as a non convex optimization problem. As a solution, we adopt the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM), hence iterating towards a stable waveform for both radar and communication purposes. Additionally, we prove convergence of the proposed method and analyze its computational complexity. Moreover, we offer an extended version of the method to cope with imperfect channel state information (CSI). Finally, we demonstrate its superior performance through simulations, in comparison to state-of-the-art radar-communication waveform designs.

Analysis of Electromagnetic Wave and Multipath Suppression from Overhead Perspective

The multipath problem in indoor target detection has always been a long-standing research hotspot. Although there are many solutions to the multipath problem in a horizontal line of sight, the multipath problem of single-station radar from an overhead perspective still needs to be solved. At present, there is a lack of detailed analysis on the multipath propagation law of electromagnetic waves from an overhead perspective. This paper first analyzes the multipath propagation law of overhead perspective and reveals a combination multipath propagation phenomenon that is easily overlooked, which is formed by walls, ground, and targets. In addition, during the analysis process, the influence of coherent sources generated by multipath on angle estimation was fully considered, and verified through simulation and measured data. Then, based on the result of propagation analysis, this paper proposes a multipath ghost target suppression method. This method first establishes a multipath ghost target location dictionary based on building information, and then matches the tracking results with the dictionary to suppress successfully matched multipath ghost targets. Finally, several experiments are carried out to verify the effectiveness of this method.

Non-Local SAR Image Despeckling Based on Sparse Representation

Speckle noise is an inherent problem of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images, which not only seriously affects the acquisition of SAR image information, but also greatly reduces the efficiency of image segmentation and feature classification. Therefore, research on how to effectively suppress speckle noise while preserving SAR image content information as much as possible has received increasing attention. Based on the non-local idea of SAR image block-matching three-dimensional (SAR-BM3D) algorithm and the concept of sparse representation, a novel SAR image despeckling algorithm is proposed. The new algorithm uses K-means singular value decomposition (K-SVD) to learn the dictionary to distinguish valid information and speckle noise and constructs a block filter based on K-SVD for despeckling, so as to avoid strong point diffusion problem in SAR-BM3D and achieve better speckle noise suppression with stronger adaptability. The experimental results on real SAR images show that the proposed algorithm achieves better comprehensive effect of speckle noise suppression in terms of evaluation indicators and information preservation of SAR images compared with several existing algorithms.

Simulation of the dependence of the radiation pattern of a digital active phased array antenna on the main destabilizing factors

As for today digital active phased array antennas (DAPAA), based on the principle of functioning using digital diagram formation, are actively used as part of spacecraft and unmanned aerial vehicles in solving radio communication and radar problems. At the same time, for the purposes of radar, DAPAA allows you to perceive all the information contained in the structure of spatiotemporal electromagnetic fields in the opening of the array and transform it into data on the presence and parameters of objects, providing deep compensation for broadband interference signals, which, combined with the expansion of the dynamic range when accumulated during spatiotemporal processing, provides high noise immunity of radar stations. To solve communication problems, DAPAA allows you to form several beams simultaneously, which allows you to simultaneously serve several areas at once with the possibility of dynamically changing the bandwidth in the channels due to variations in partial power.

A Roadside Millimeter-Wave Radar Calibration Method Based on Connected Vehicle Technology

Roadside millimeter-wave radar is one of the most important sensors in roadside perception systems, which have been widely used in intelligent traffic systems. It is important to find an effective calibration procedure for roadside radar to obtain the World Geodetic System-1984 (WGS-84) coordinates of detected targets. However, it is difficult to calibrate roadside millimeter-wave radar safely on public roads without road closures. To solve this problem, this article proposes a roadside millimeter-wave radar calibration method based on connected vehicle technology. First, all the trajectory points of vehicles detected by radar, including the connected vehicle, are collected, and the WGS-84 coordinates of the connected vehicle are obtained by vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication with the roadside unit. Then, the trajectory points of vehicles are clustered with the density-based spatial clustering of applications with noise (DBSCAN) method, and the trajectory of the connected vehicle in the radar coordinate system is identified with the velocity-matching method automatically. The data pairs of the connected vehicle in the radar coordinate system and WGS-84 coordinate system are obtained with time synchronization. Finally, the calibration parameters are solved with five different types of optimization methods. We verify these methods on the beltway in Changsha. The results show that the improved pseudo inverse method (IPIM) and PIM achieve better performance than the extrinsic calibration method (ECM), rotate coordinate method (RCM), and improved RCM, and they can meet lane-level positioning requirements for V2X applications. This study provides an economical and effective way to solve the calibration problem for roadside millimeter-wave radar in an engineering project.

A Low-Complexity Non-Contact Vital Sign Detection System and Heartbeat Extraction Algorithm

A low-complexity vital sign detection system is proposed. The system uses a phase discriminator as the demodulation module and a phase shifter to solve the null problem in CW radar. This design significantly reduces the complexity. In the subsequent processing of this system, variational pattern decomposition (VMD) is used to analyze vital sign signals. Experiments using this system show that VMD is efficient and accurate in extracting human target respiration and heartbeat frequencies.

Sub-aperture SAR imaging with uncertainty quantification

In the problem of spotlight mode airborne synthetic aperture radar (SAR) image formation, it is well-known that data collected over a wide azimuthal angle violate the isotropic scattering property typically assumed. Many techniques have been proposed to account for this issue, including both full-aperture and sub-aperture methods based on filtering, regularized least squares, and Bayesian methods. A full-aperture method that uses a hierarchical Bayesian prior to incorporate appropriate speckle modeling and reduction was recently introduced to produce samples of the posterior density rather than a single image estimate. This uncertainty quantification information is more robust as it can generate a variety of statistics for the scene. As proposed, the method was not well-suited for large problems, however, as the sampling was inefficient. Moreover, the method was not explicitly designed to mitigate the effects of the faulty isotropic scattering assumption. In this work we therefore propose a new sub-aperture SAR imaging method that uses a sparse Bayesian learning-type algorithm to more efficiently produce approximate posterior densities for each sub-aperture window. These estimates may be useful in and of themselves, or when of interest, the statistics from these distributions can be combined to form a composite image. Furthermore, unlike the often-employed -regularized least squares methods, no user-defined parameters are required. Application-specific adjustments are made to reduce the typically burdensome runtime and storage requirements so that appropriately large images can be generated. Finally, this paper focuses on incorporating these techniques into SAR image formation process, that is, for the problem starting with SAR phase history data, so that no additional processing errors are incurred. The advantage over existing SAR image formation methods are clearly presented with numerical experiments using real-world data.

Extended Openmax Approach for the Classification of Radar Images With a Rejection Option

The closed-set assumption in conventional classifiers, such as the Softmax, constrains deep networks to select an output from the given known classes. However, the classification in a real-world scenario should account for open sets where a new class of targets, which has not been included in the training phase, can easily confuse the classifier. Therefore, it is necessary to not only correctly classify known classes but also fundamentally deal with unknown ones. In this article, we extend the Openmax approach, which has been introduced for open-set recognition in the optical domain, by offering solutions to its inherent limitations. The motivation behind the work is to propose a more accurate and robust classifier for the open-set recognition problem in synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images, without having any prior knowledge about the incoming unknown data. A number of real-data experiments are conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method on the basis of selected performance metrics. In particular, the Moving and Stationary Target Acquisition and Recognition dataset, which contains SAR images of ten military vehicles, is used for training and inference of a convolutional neural network, with an option to recognize open-set images.

Moving target detection in range-ambiguous clutter scenario with PA-FDA dual-mode radar

Range-ambiguous clutter suppression is challenging for airborne radar in non-sidelooking geometry. The target detection performance might degrade severely due to range ambiguity and range dependence problems. It is proved that the frequency diverse array (FDA) is capable of resolving the range ambiguity and is beneficial for range ambiguous clutter suppression. However, FDA uses wide coverage transmit beampattern, which causes somewhat gain loss compared to the phased array (PA). In this paper, we establish a PA-FDA dual-mode radar to maximize the advantages of PA and FDA radars to improve target detection performance in range-ambiguous clutter scenario. Firstly, the range ambiguous resolvability of FDA is utilized, where range ambiguous clutters are separated by using pre-filtering before space-time adaptive processing. Therefore, the range dependence compensation algorithms can be performed independently to further address the range dependence problem of non-sidelooking array radar. In this case, the clutter covariance matrix (CCM) is reconstructed by using linear combination of distinguishable CCMs corresponding to different range regions, resulting in improved accuracy of CCM estimation. Secondly, the enhanced CCM is applied in PA counterpart, which maximizes the high beampattern gain of PA and range ambiguity resolvability of FDA. It is verified that the PA-FDA dual-mode radar outperforms the PA or FDA single-mode in simultaneously narrow-beam detection and wide-angle coverage. Thus, the proposed PA-FDA dual-mode radar can greatly contribute to searching and tracking tasks. Simulation examples demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Unsupervised classification of polarimetric SAR images via SV[formula omitted]MM with extended variational inference

This paper addresses the unsupervised classification problem for multilook polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (PolSAR) images via proposing a new spatially variant Gp0 mixture model based on the extended variational inference (SVGp0MM-EVI). Specifically, an SVGp0MM is constructed by associating data points with their own mixing coefficient vectors rather than sharing the same vector, which provides the additional flexibility to incorporate the spatial context and further effectively deal with the more heterogeneous areas than Gp0MM. Then, an extended variational inference (EVI) algorithm is derived to facilitate the assignment of the conjugate prior distributions and accurately estimate the underlying parameters, in which two “help” functions are specially designed to solve the intractable variational lower bound. Meanwhile, dual spatial constraints based on the Bartlett distance and the mean template are also explored on polarimetric matrix and the hyperparameter in the posteriori distribution of mixing coefficients, respectively, thus adequately capturing the local correlation from the polarimetric matrix and the geometry perspectives. Furthermore, the learning algorithm with all the closed-form updates is developed and the cluster number could be automatically determined. Five PolSAR data sets (including two labeled data sets), which are obtained by different sensors, are used to verify the effectiveness of the proposed model. Experimental results illustrate that the proposed SVGp0MM-EVI is beneficial to classification task of PolSAR images, and achieves higher accuracy (e.g., 95.65% and 97.41% OA values) compared with some widely-used methods (i.e., H/α-Wishart, Chernoff–Wishart, Gp0MM, SVWMM and CK-HDRF methods).

Microwave Photonic Radar Lost Bandwidth Spectrum Recovery Algorithm Based on Improved TSPN-ADMM-Net

Compared to conventional microwave regime radars, microwave photonic (MWP) radar is capable of transmitting extremely large bandwidth signals, wherein the frequencies of such signals distribute across multiple bands. In practical applications, the large bandwidth of MWP radar may be split into multiple discrete sub-bands due to various considerations such as anti-jamming, resource-saving, communication band avoidance, etc. Nonetheless, it leads to the fact that MWP radar suffers from the challenging problems of side-lobes elevation and main-lobes broadening. These problems will affect the image quality seriously. In order to address this issue, a spectrum recovery algorithm based on an improved Truncated Schatten- <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">p</i> Norm and Sparse Regularizer-Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers (TSPN-ADMM) network is proposed in this paper. This algorithm can efficiently recover the lost spectrum in MWP radar applications and further improve the imaging quality of the MWP radar. In the lost spectrum recovery problem, the parameters of the recovery algorithm directly determine the recovery performance. The different forms of lost spectrum possessed by MWP radar make the selection of parameters for the spectrum recovery algorithm extremely difficult. As a consequence, in this paper, the spectrum recovery problem for MWP radar can be reformulated into a matrix completion problem by exploiting its joint sparsity and low-rankness. Based on the traditional TSPN-ADMM algorithm, an improved TSPN-ADMM-Net approach is proposed by utilizing the algorithm unrolling technique, wherein the hyperparameters in TSPN-ADMM algorithm are optimized in an end-to-end training manner. Consequently, the algorithm proposed in this paper can achieve excellent recovery results when dealing with the multiple spectrum missing situations existing in MWP radar. The effectiveness of the algorithm is verified by a combination of numerical simulations and actual MWP radar data.