Radar Working Research Articles

Multi‐function radar work mode recognition based on residual shrinkage reconstruction recurrent neural network

AbstractIn modern electronic warfare, multi‐function radar work mode recognition is increasingly crucial. However, the challenges posed by complex electromagnetic environments, such as lost pulses, spurious pulses, and measurement errors, along with the reliance of traditional multi‐task learning strategies on clean samples, make it difficult for existing algorithms to achieve satisfactory recognition performance in real‐world scenarios. To address these issues, this paper introduces a novel residual shrinkage reconstruction recurrent neural network (RS‐RRNN). The network uses a Gated Recurrent Unit as its backbone to extract temporal features and enhances feature extraction by reconstructing the GRU's input, while also reducing dependence on clean samples. These features are then processed through a residual shrinkage structure to reduce noise, which significantly improves the model's robustness in non‐ideal scenarios. Simulations demonstrate that RS‐RNN has better performances in accuracy and robustness than existing networks.

3D printed PEEK/CF nanocomposites metamaterial for enhanced resonances toward microwave absorption and compatible camouflage

The stealth materials for future weapons and equipment need to operate within the radar working band, be lightweight, easy to process, and compatible with infrared stealth. Integrating all these characteristics poses a significant challenge. This work utilizes poly (ether-ether-ketone)/carbon fibers (PEEK/CF) composite materials and employed reverse-guided manufacturing through simulation design. Incorporating a grid structure within the pyramid metamaterial enables electromagnetic wave reflecting multiple times in various directions. By optimizing the important interaction between dielectric properties of the materials structures，the Pyramid Grid Filled Metamaterial enables broadband electromagnetic wave absorption (<-10 dB, 8–18 GHz), weak angular dependence (5- 45o incidence), polarization insensitivity, radar cross section (RCS) reduction (reduction over 10 dB between θ = −60° and 60°), and infrared camouflage performance. The PGF metamaterial of 180◊180 mm2, weighs only 103.1 g at a thickness of 9 mm. This work paves a way for the design the radar infrared compatible composite metamaterials.

Multifunction Radar Working Mode Recognition With Unsupervised Hierarchical Modeling and Functional Semantics Embedding Based LSTM

Multifunction Radar Working Mode Recognition With Unsupervised Hierarchical Modeling and Functional Semantics Embedding Based LSTM

Pulse‐level work state recognition of multifunction radar based on MC‐RSG

AbstractAccurate work state recognition of multifunction radar (MFR) is crucial in electronic warfare, as it helps understand the enemy's intention and evaluate potential threats. A pulse‐level work state recognition method of MFR based on the residual block with spatial attention connected gated recurrent unit by features using metric coding and correlative embedding (MC‐RSG) is proposed. Metric coding is designed to generate the distance vector with time of arrival, and the correlative embedding is performed on the distance vector and raw data features to increase the feature information by extracting feature information associated with the previous and subsequent pulses in each feature sequence, respectively. Besides, we make use of the model called RSG containing the residual block with spatial attention connected gated recurrent unit to learn the features of pulse sequences and identify the radar work state label of each pulse. The experimental work shows that the method is robust and has achieved up to 97% recognition accuracy on the test dataset under ideal observation conditions and 5% higher than the comparison network in high noise observation conditions.

Joint Implementation Method for Clutter Suppression and Coherent Maneuvering Target Detection Based on Sub-Aperture Processing with Airborne Bistatic Radar

An airborne bistatic radar working in downward-looking mode confronts two major challenges for low-altitude target detection. One is range cell migration (RCM) and Doppler migration (DM) resulting from the relative motion of the radar and target. The other is the non-stationarity characteristic of clutter due to the radar configuration. To solve these problems, this paper proposes a joint implementation method based on sub-aperture processing to achieve clutter suppression and coherent maneuvering target detection. Specifically, clutter Doppler compensation and sliding window processing are carried out to realize sub-aperture space–time processing, removing the clutter non-stationarity resulting from the bistatic geometric configuration. Thus, the output matrix of clutter suppression in the sub-aperture could be obtained. Then, the elements with the same phase of this matrix are superimposed and rearranged to achieve the reconstructed 2-D range-pluse echo matrix. Next, the aperture division with respect to slow time is conducted and the RCM correction based on modified location rotation transform (MLRT) and coherent integration (CI) are realized within each sub-aperture. Finally, the matched filtering process (MFP) is applied to compensate for the RCM/DM among different sub-apertures to coherently integrate the maneuvering target energy of all sub-apertures. The simulation and measured data processing results prove the validity of the proposed method.

Multivariate Time Series Feature Extraction and Clustering Framework for Multi-Function Radar Work Mode Recognition

Multi-Function Radars (MFRs) are sophisticated sensors with great agility and flexibility in adapting their transmitted waveform and control parameters. The recognition of MFR work modes based on the intercepted pulse sequences plays an important role in interpreting the functional purpose and threats of a non-cooperative MFRs. However, due to the increased flexibility of MFRs, radar work modes with emerging new modulations and control parameters always appear, and the supervised classification method suffers performance degradation or even failure. Unsupervised learning and clustering of MFR pulse sequences becomes urgent and important. This paper establishes a unified multivariate MFR time series feature extraction and clustering framework for MFR work mode recognition. At first, various features are collected to form the feature set. The feature set includes features extracted through deep learning based on recurrent auto-encoders, multidimensional time series toolkit features, and manually crafted features for radar inter-pulse modulations. Subsequently, several feature selection algorithms, combined with different clustering and classification methods, are used for the selection of an “optimal” feature subset. Finally, the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed framework and selected features are validated through simulated and measured datasets. In the simulated dataset containing 20 classes of work modes, under the most severe non-ideal conditions, we achieve a clustering purity of 73.46% and an NMI of 84.28%. In the measured dataset with seven classes of work modes, we achieve a clustering purity of 86.96% and an NMI of 90.10%.

Shipborne Multi-Function Radar Working Mode Recognition Based on DP-ATCN

There has been increased interest in recognizing the dynamic and flexible changes in shipborne multi-function radar (MFR) working modes. The working modes determine the distribution of pulse descriptor words (PDWs). However, building the mapping relationship from PDWs to working modes in reconnaissance systems presents many challenges, such as the duration of the working modes not being fixed, incomplete temporal features in short PDW slices, and delayed feedback of the reconnaissance information in long PDW slices. This paper recommends an MFR working mode recognition method based on the ShakeDrop regularization dual-path attention temporal convolutional network (DP-ATCN) with prolonged temporal feature preservation. The method uses a temporal feature extraction network with the Convolutional Block Attention Module (CBAM) and ShakeDrop regularization to acquire a high-dimensional space mapping of temporal features of the PDWs in a short time slice. Additionally, with prolonged PDW accumulation, an enhanced TCN is introduced to attain the temporal variation of long-term dependence. This way, secondary correction of MFR working mode recognition results is achieved with both promptness and accuracy. Experimental results and analysis confirm that, despite the presence of missing and spurious pulses, the recommended method performs effectively and consistently in shipborne MFR working mode recognition tasks.

Comparison of Cloud Structures of Storms Producing Lightning at Different Distance Based on Five Years Measurements of a Doppler Polarimetric Vertical Cloud Profiler

We processed five years of measurements (2018–2022) of a vertically pointing radar MIRA 35c at the Milešovka meteorological observatory with the aim of analyzing the cloud structure of thunderstorms and comparing differences in measured data for cases when lightning discharges were observed very close to the radar position, and for cases when lightning discharges were observed at a greater distance from the radar position. The MIRA 35c radar is a Doppler polarimetric radar working at 35 GHz (Ka-band) with a vertical resolution of 28.9 m and a time resolution of approximately 2 s. For the analysis, we considered radar data whose radar reflectivity was at least 10 dBZ at 5 km or higher above the radar to ensure that there was a cloud above the radar. We divided the radar data into “near” data (a lightning discharge was registered up to 1 km from the radar position) and “far” data (a lightning discharge was registered from 7.5 to 10 km from the radar position). We compared the following quantities: (i) Power in co-channel (pow), (ii) power in cross-channel (pow-cx), (iii) phase in co-channel (pha), (iv) phase in cross-channel (pha-cx), (v) equivalent radar reflectivity (Ze), (vi) Linear Depolarization Ratio (LDR), (vii) co-polar correlation coefficient (RHO), (viii) Doppler radial velocity (V), (ix) Doppler spectrum width (RMS), and (x) Differential phase (Phi). Pow, pow-cx, pha, pha-cx, and V are basic data measured by the radar, while Ze, LDR, RHO, RMS, and Phi are derived quantities. Our results showed that the characteristics of the compared radar quantities are clearly distinct for “near” dataset from “far” dataset. Furthermore, we found out that there is a clear evolution close to the time of discharges of the observed radar quantities in the “near” dataset, which is not that obvious in the “far” dataset.

Feasibility of Using a 300 GHz Radar to Detect Fractures and Lithological Changes in Rocks

The detection and quantification of fractures in rocks, as well as the detection of lithological changes, are of particular interest in scientific fields, such as construction materials, geotechnics, reservoirs and the diagnostics of dielectric composite materials and cultural heritage objects. Therefore, different methods and techniques have been developed and improved over the years to provide solutions, e.g., seismic, ground-penetrating radar and X-ray microtomography. However, there are always trade-offs, such as spatial resolution, investigated volume and rock penetration depth. At present, high-frequency radars (&gt;60 GHz) are available on the market, which are compact in size and capable of imaging large areas in short periods of time. However, the few rock applications that have been carried out have not provided any information on whether these radars would be useful for detecting fractures and lithological changes in rocks. Therefore, in this work, we performed different experiments on construction and reservoir rocks using a frequency-modulated continuous wave radar working at 300 GHz to evaluate its viability in this type of application. The results showed that the radar quantified millimeter fractures at a 1 cm rock penetration depth with a sensitivity of 500 μm. Furthermore, lithological changes were identified, even when detecting interfaces generated by the artificial union of two samples from the same rock.

Joint recognition and parameter estimation of cognitive radar work modes with LSTM-transformer

The recent developed cognitive radars can implement flexible work modes with programmable modulation types and optimized modulating values for each mode definition parameter. Automatic analysis of these work modes is a significant challenge for modern electromagnetic reconnaissance receivers. In this paper, a Multi-Output Multi-Structure (MOMS) learning-based processing framework is proposed for Joint inter-pulse automatic Modulation Recognition and Parameter Estimation (JMRPE-MOMS). We propose a label construction method as a feature interpretation method of the network to facilitate MOMS learning and utilize the correlations between labels for performance gain. Moreover, an LSTM-Transformer is designed to mine deep time-series characteristics, which can model local and global relationships and reduce quantization loss. The proposed framework can perform joint modulation recognition and parameter estimation (JMRPE) tasks simultaneously with flexible output structures including scalar output and vector output with fixed or variable sizes. Extensive simulations are performed based on the simulated radar work modes defined with pulse repetition interval (PRI) sequences. The simulation results validate the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed method especially under non-ideal electromagnetic environments.

Change Point Detection for Fine-Grained MFR Work Modes with Multi-Head Attention-Based Bi-LSTM Network

Detection of the changes in Multi-Functional Radar (MFR) work modes is a critical situation assessment task for Electronic Support Measure (ESM) systems. There are two major challenges that must be addressed: (i) The received radar pulse stream may contain multiple work mode segments of unknown number and duration, which makes the Change Point Detection (CPD) difficult. (ii) Modern MFRs can produce a variety of parameter-level (fine-grained) work modes with complex and flexible patterns, which are challenging to detect through traditional statistical methods and basic learning models. To address the challenges, a deep learning framework is proposed for fine-grained work mode CPD in this paper. First, the fine-grained MFR work mode model is established. Then, a multi-head attention-based bi-directional long short-term memory network is introduced to abstract high-order relationships between successive pulses. Finally, temporal features are adopted to predict the probability of each pulse being a change point. The framework further improves the label configuration and the loss function of training to mitigate the label sparsity problem effectively. The simulation results showed that compared with existing methods, the proposed framework effectively improves the CPD performance at parameter-level. Moreover, the F1-score was increased by 4.15% under hybrid non-ideal conditions.

Walking Step Monitoring with a Millimeter-Wave Radar in Real-Life Environment for Disease and Fall Prevention for the Elderly.

We studied the use of a millimeter-wave frequency-modulated continuous wave radar for gait analysis in a real-life environment, with a focus on the measurement of the step time. A method was developed for the successful extraction of gait patterns for different test cases. The quantitative investigation carried out in a lab corridor showed the excellent reliability of the proposed method for the step time measurement, with an average accuracy of 96%. In addition, a comparison test between the millimeter-wave radar and a continuous-wave radar working at 2.45 GHz was performed, and the results suggest that the millimeter-wave radar is more capable of capturing instantaneous gait features, which enables the timely detection of small gait changes appearing at the early stage of cognitive disorders.

Robust Bayesian attention belief network for radar work mode recognition

Understanding and analyzing radar work modes play a key role in electronic support measure system. Many classifiers, for example those based on convolutional neural network (CNN) and recurrent neural network (RNN), are available for recognizing radar work modes as well as emitter types from their waveform parameters. However, the performance of these methods may suffer significantly when confronting different types of signal degradation, e.g., measurement error, lost pulse and spurious pulse. To tackle this issue, we in this paper develop a Bayesian attention belief network (BABNet) based on Bayesian neural networks in which the probability distribution over weights can help to enhance the model robustness for corrupted data. In particular, we adopt pre-trained CNN as the Bayesian inference prior. This not only accelerates the convergence speed, but also avoids the training process getting stuck in bad local minima. Meanwhile, instead of using RNNs which are difficult to be implemented in parallel, the combination of padding operation and attention module in the proposed BABNet enables CNN, as the backbone, to process sequential data with variable length. Extensive experiments are conducted to demonstrate the recognition capability and robustness of the BABNet in different environments.

Ionospheric Phase Scintillation Correction Based on Multi-Aperture Faraday Rotation Estimation in Spaceborne P-Band Full-Polarimetric SAR Data

The spaceborne P-band fully polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (SAR) working system is highly susceptible to the scintillation effects induced by ionospheric irregularities due to its low carrier frequency. The scintillation phase error (SPE) is a dominant factor that leads to azimuth decorrelation. The aperture-dependent and spatial-varying characteristics of the SPE promote the complexity of the SPE estimation and compensation. In this paper, a methodology is described that compensates the SPE by estimating the Faraday rotation (FR) angle from fully polarimetric SAR data. The multi-aperture scheme is adopted, including the sub-aperture FR estimation, multi-aperture splicing, and overall compensation, to take the complicated characteristics of the aperture-dependent and spatial-varying SPE into account. The methodology is finally validated on simulated data derived from the airborne P-band SAR real data, and compared with an existing method. The new method does not need prior knowledge of the ionospheric height. Furthermore, its performance is investigated in relation to several key factors in different simulation conditions.

A Study on Millimeter Wave SAR Imaging for Non-Destructive Testing of Rebar in Reinforced Concrete.

In this study, we investigate a millimeter wave (mmWave) synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging scheme utilizing a low-cost frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) radar to take part in non-destructive testing which could be a useful tool for both civilian and military demands. The FMCW radar working in the frequency range from 76 GHz to 81 GHz is equipped with a 2-D moving platform aiming to reconstruct the 2-D image of the shape of the target object. Due to the lab environment containing several devices and furniture, various noise and interference signals from the floor are not avoidable. Therefore, the digital signal processing algorithms are joined to remove the undesired signals as well as improve the target recognition. This study adopts the range migration algorithms (RMAs) on the processed reflected signal data to form the image of the target because of its verified ability in this type of mission. On the other hand, the integration of compressed sensing (CS) algorithms into the SAR imaging system is also researched which helps to improve the performance of the system by reducing the measurement duration while still maintaining the image quality. Three minimization algorithms are used involving the imaging system as the CS solvers reconstruct the radar data before being processed by RMA to form the image. The proposed imaging scheme demonstrates its good ability with high azimuth resolution in the mission of detecting tiny cracks in the rebar of reinforced concrete. In addition, the participation of CS algorithms improves the performance of the scheme as the cracks on the rebar can be located on the images, which are reconstructed from only 30% of the dataset. The comparison of CS solvers shows that ADMM outperforms the other candidates in the reconstruction task.

Joint low-rank and sparse representation for micro-Doppler effects removed inverse synthetic aperture radar imaging

In terms of the target with micromotion parts, the readability of inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR) image of the main body is influenced by micro-Doppler (m-D) effects. Some facts, such as radar working modes and electromagnetic environment, may lead to sparse aperture, which further induces high side lobes and makes the removal of m-D effects more difficult. To jointly eliminate m-D effects and the interference introduced by sparse aperture, a novel m-D effects removed ISAR imaging algorithm is proposed. In this technique, sparse ISAR imaging with the removal of m-D effects can be established as an optimization model of joint low-rank and sparse representation, which is a quadruple constraint optimization problem, including the low rank of the high-resolution range profile (HRRP) of the main body, the sparsity of the HRRP of micromotion parts, the sparsity of the imaging result of the main body, and the noise constraint of the echo signal. Furthermore, the matrix factorization method is theoretically presented to simplify the optimization process of the nuclear norm, and the alternating direction method of multipliers is utilized to solve all constructed models efficiently. Experimental results based on both simulated and measured data demonstrate the superiority of the proposed algorithm.

Investigation of UAV Detection by Different Solid-State Marine Radars

The development of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technologies provides not only benefits but also threats. UAV technologies are developing faster than means of detecting and neutralizing them. Radar technology is one of the means of UAV detection which provides the longest detection range. Today’s market provides low-cost solid-state marine radar working on FMCW and pulse-compression principles of operation. Despite such radars having attractive features, they were not designed for UAV detection. Although they are not optimal, they could be used for UAV detection. The detection possibility of UAVs by marine radars was investigated by using three types of radars and two types of small UAVs as targets. Radar cross-section measurements of the targets were made in laboratory conditions.

Deep MIMO radar target detector in Gaussian clutter

We focus on the target detection problem of the multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) radar in clutter. Most of the existing MIMO radar detection works rely on the clutter models, which may limit their scopes of application. To address this issue, a deep learning based MIMO radar target detection framework is proposed in this paper, which utilises the powerful representation and discrimination capabilities of deep neural networks (DNNs) to improve the detection performance in a data-driven manner and does not require any prior information about the clutter distribution. In most classification problems, DNNs are trained with the cross entropy loss, which promotes DNNs to achieve higher accuracy. However, the main concern in the radar target detection problem is the probability of detection (PD) under a given probability of false alarm. In this framework, a novel loss is proposed to directly maximise the average PD of the DNN, or equivalently maximise the area under curve of the DNN. Under the DL-based MIMO radar target detection framework, a deep convolutional neural network (CNN) architecture is introduced, and an input feature of the received signal for the CNN based on the conventional generalised likelihood ratio test statistics is designed to further improve the detection performance. Finally, extensive simulation results are presented to validate the detection performance and the robustness of the proposed methods.

Development and application of data mining method for synthetic aperture radar image ship inspection based on big data application technology

Synthetic aperture radar belongs to the radar signal working in microwave band, which has the characteristics of strong penetrating performance, large area imaging, all-weather and so on, and is widely used in the civil field and military field. Especially in the background of the information era, synthetic aperture radar imaging technology has developed to different degrees, and the resolution of synthetic aperture radar images has been significantly improved, which is highly valued by the target detection field, and the detection of naval targets through the reasonable use of synthetic aperture radar images has become an important application direction in the field of marine remote sensing. Based on this, this paper analyzes the characteristics of ship targets in SAR images, analyzes the differences between them and optical images from different aspects, and then concentrates on the most common statistical models and prediction methods of clutter analysis in SAR images, proposes the most reasonable way of clutter distribution simulation, and then uses the experimental way to accurately evaluate the complex sea clutter in SAR images, so as to propose the similar characteristics of the ship detection method‥

Convolutional Neural Network-Based Radar Antenna Scanning Period Recognition

The antenna scanning period (ASP) of radar is a crucial parameter in electronic warfare (EW) which is used in many applications, such as radar work pattern recognition and emitter recognition. For antennas of radars and EW systems, which perform scanning circularly, the method based on threshold measurement is invalid. To overcome this shortcoming, this study proposes a method using the convolutional neural network (CNN) to recognize the ASP of radar under the condition that antennas of the radar and EW system both scan circularly. A system model is constructed, and factors affecting the received signal power are analyzed. A CNN model for rapid and accurate ASP radar classification is developed. A large number of received signal time–power images of three separate ASPs are used for the training and testing of the developed model under different experimental conditions. Numerical experiment results and performance comparison demonstrate high classification accuracy and effectiveness of the proposed method in the condition that antennas of radar and EW system are circular scan, where the average recognition accuracy for radar ASP is at least 90% when the signal to-noise ratio (SNR) is not less than 30 dB, which is significantly higher than the recognition accuracy of NAC and AFT methods based on adaptive threshold detection.