Search Results (501)

Wind turbine radar echoes exhibit significant scattering power and Doppler spectrum broadening effects, which can interfere with the detection of meteorological targets and subsequently impact weather prediction and disaster warning decisions. In operational weather radar applications, the influence of wind farm on radar observations must be fully considered by meteorological departments and related institutions. In this paper, a Wind Turbine Clutter Classification Algorithm based on Random Forest (WTCDA-RF) classification is proposed. The level-II radar data is processed in blocks, and the spatial position invariance of wind farm clutter is leveraged for feature extraction. Samples are labeled based on position information, and valid samples are screened and saved to construct a vector sample set of wind farm clutter. Through training and optimization, the proposed WTCDA-RF model achieves an ACC of 90.92%, a PRE of 89.37%, a POD of 92.89%, and an F1-score of 91.10%, with a CSI of 83.65% and a FAR of only 10.63%. This not only enhances the accuracy of weather forecasts and ensures the reliability of radar data but also provides operational conditions for subsequent clutter removal, improves disaster warning capabilities, and ensures timely and accurate warning information under extreme weather conditions. Full article

This study utilizes Ka-band millimeter-wave cloud radar (MMCR), assisted by a precipitation phenomenon instrument, to conduct case studies and analyses of convective precipitation, cumulus precipitation, and stratus precipitation in the Xi’an region. Using the Doppler spectral data of the MMCR, dynamic parameters such as vertical air motion velocity (updraft and downdraft) and particle terminal fall velocity within these three types of cloud precipitation were retrieved. The results show that above the melting layer, the maximum updraft velocity in convective clouds reaches 15 m·s⁻¹, and the strong updraft drives cloud droplets to move upward at an average velocity of about 5 m·s⁻¹. The average updraft velocity in cumulus clouds is greater than that in stratus clouds, with updrafts in cumulus and stratus mainly distributed within 1.5–3 m·s⁻¹ and 1–2 m·s⁻¹, respectively. The reflectivity factor of precipitation particles (Ze) is used to correct the equivalent reflectivity factor (Ka-Ze) after attenuation correction below the MMCR melting layer. The accuracy of calculating the raindrop concentration using the Ka-Ze of MMCR was improved below the melting layer. Based on the relationship between terminal fall velocity and particle diameter and using the conversion between the MMCR power spectrum and raindrop spectrum, the concentration, fall velocity, and particle diameter of raindrops are calculated below the melting layer. The results show that the average reflectivity factor, average concentration, and average particle diameter of raindrops follow the order of convective precipitation > cumulus precipitation > stratiform precipitation. However, the average terminal fall velocity distribution of raindrop particles follows a different order: convective precipitation > stratiform precipitation > cumulus precipitation. Full article

Air moving-target detection is crucial for national defense, civil aviation, and airspace supervision. Spaceborne synthetic aperture radar (SAR) provides high-resolution, continuous observations for this task, but faces challenges including target attitude variation-induced weak signals and Doppler defocusing from targets’ high-speed motion, which hinder target-background separation. To address this, we propose a novel method combining sub-aperture segmentation with GoDec+ low-rank decomposition to enhance signal-to-noise ratio and suppress defocusing. Critically, ADS-B flight data is integrated as ground truth for spatio-temporal validation. Experiments using Sentinel-1 SM mode SLC imagery across farmland, forest, and mountainous regions confirm the method’s effectiveness and robustness in real airspace scenarios. Full article

Human pose estimation (HPE) in privacy-sensitive environments such as healthcare facilities and smart homes demands non-visual sensing solutions. Millimeter-wave (mmWave) radar emerges as a promising alternative, yet its development is hindered by the scarcity of high-fidelity datasets with accurate annotations. This paper introduces mmFree-Pose, the first dedicated mmWave radar dataset specifically designed for privacy-preserving HPE. Collected through a novel visual-free framework that synchronizes mmWave radar with VDSuit-Full motion-capture sensors, our dataset covers 10+ actions, from basic gestures to complex falls. Each sample provides (i) raw 3D point clouds with Doppler velocity and intensity, (ii) precise 23-joint skeletal annotations, and (iii) full-body motion sequences in privacy-critical scenarios. Crucially, all data is captured without the use of visual sensors, ensuring fundamental privacy protection by design. Unlike conventional approaches that rely on RGB or depth cameras, our framework eliminates the risk of visual data leakage while maintaining high annotation fidelity. The dataset also incorporates scenarios involving occlusions, different viewing angles, and multiple subject variations to enhance generalization in real-world applications. By providing a high-quality and privacy-compliant dataset, mmFree-Pose bridges the gap between RF sensing and home monitoring applications, where safeguarding personal identity and behavior remains a critical concern. Full article

Robust maritime radar object detection and tracking in maritime clutter environments is critical for maritime safety and security. Conventional Constant False Alarm Rate (CFAR) detectors have limited performance in processing complex-valued radar echoes, especially in complex scenarios where phase information is critical and in the real-time processing of successive echo pulses, while existing deep learning methods usually lack native support for complex-valued data and have inherent shortcomings in real-time compared to conventional methods. To overcome these limitations, we propose a dual-branch sequence feature fusion (DFF) detector designed specifically for complex-valued continuous sea-clutter signals, drawing on commonly used methods in video pattern recognition. The DFF employs dual parallel complex-valued U-Net branches to extract multilevel spatiotemporal features from distance profiles and Doppler features from distance–Doppler spectrograms, preserving the critical phase–amplitude relationship. Subsequently, the sequential feature-extraction module (SFEM) captures the temporal dependence in both feature streams. Next, the Adaptive Weight Learning (AWL) module dynamically fuses these multimodal features by learning modality-specific weights. Finally, the detection module generates the object localisation output. Extensive evaluations on the IPIX and SDRDSP datasets show that DFF performs well. On SDRDSP, DFF achieves 98.76% accuracy and 68.75% in F1 score, which significantly outperforms traditional CFAR methods and state-of-the-art deep learning models in terms of detection accuracy and false alarm rate (FAR). These results validate the effectiveness of DFF for reliable maritime object detection in complex clutter environments through multimodal feature fusion and sequence-dependent modelling. Full article

Prolonged sedentary behavior in office environments is a key risk factor for musculoskeletal disorders and metabolic health issues. While workplace stretching interventions can mitigate these risks, effective monitoring solutions are often limited by privacy concerns and constrained sensor placement. This study proposes a ceiling-mounted ultra-wideband (UWB) radar system for privacy-preserving classification of working and stretching postures in office settings. In this study, data were collected from ten participants in five scenarios: four posture classes (seated working, seated stretching, standing working, standing stretching), and empty environment. Distance and Doppler information extracted from the UWB radar signals was transformed into modality-specific images, which were then used as inputs to two classification models: ConcatFusion, a baseline model that fuses features by concatenation, and AttnFusion, which introduces spatial attention and convolutional feature integration. Both models were evaluated using leave-one-subject-out cross-validation. The AttnFusion model outperformed ConcatFusion, achieving a testing accuracy of 90.6% and a macro F1-score of 90.5%. These findings demonstrate the effectiveness of a ceiling-mounted UWB radar combined with attention-based modality fusion for unobtrusive office posture monitoring. The approach offers a privacy-preserving solution with potential applications in real-time ergonomic assessment and integration into workplace health and safety programs. Full article

To improve the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) detection and recognition rate based on radar detection technology, this paper proposes to take the radar range-Doppler planar graph that characterizes the echo information of the UAV as the input of the improved YOLOv8 network, uses the YOLOv8n-RFL network to detect and identify the UAV target. In the detection method of the UAV target, first, we detect the echo signal of the UAV through radar, and take the received echo model as the foundation, utilize the principle of generating range-Doppler planar data to convert the received UAV echo signals into range-Doppler planar graphs, and then, use the improved YOLOv8 network to train and detect the UAV target. In the detection algorithm, the range-Doppler planar graph is taken as the input of the YOLOv8n backbone network, the UAV target is extracted from the complex background through the C2f-RVB and C2f-RVBE modules to obtain more feature maps containing multi-scale UAV feature information; the shallow features from the backbone network and deep features from the neck network are integrated through the feature semantic fusion module (FSFM) to generate high-quality fused UAV feature maps with rich details and deep semantic information, and then, the lightweight sharing detection head (LWSD) is utilized to conduct unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) feature recognition based on the generated fused feature map. By detecting the collected echo data of the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), it was found that the proposed improved algorithm can effectively detect the UAV. Full article

In high-resolution and wide-swath (HRWS) synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging, the azimuth multi-channel technique effectively suppresses azimuth ambiguity, serving as a reliable approach for achieving wide-swath imaging. However, due to mechanical vibrations of the platform and airflow instabilities, airborne SAR may experience errors in attitude and flight path during operation. Furthermore, errors also exist in the antenna patterns, frequency stability, and phase noise among the azimuth multi-channels. The presence of these errors can cause azimuth multi-channel reconstruction failure, resulting in azimuth ambiguity and significantly degrading the quality of HRWS images. This article presents a novel error correction method for airborne HRWS SAR based on azimuth-variant attitude and range-variant Doppler domain pattern, which simultaneously considers the effects of various errors, including channel attitude errors and Doppler domain antenna pattern errors, on azimuth reconstruction. Attitude errors are the primary cause of azimuth-variant errors between channels. This article uses the vector method and attitude transformation matrix to calculate and compensate for the attitude errors of azimuth multi-channels, and employs the two-dimensional frequency-domain echo interferometry method to calculate the fixed delay errors and fixed phase errors. To better achieve channel error compensation, this scheme also considers the estimation and compensation of Doppler domain antenna pattern errors in wide-swath scenes. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed scheme is confirmed through simulations and processing of airborne real data. Full article

With the rapid expansion of Wind Parks (WPs), Wind Turbine Clutter (WTC) has become a significant challenge due to the interference it causes with data from next-generation Doppler weather radars. Traditional clutter detection methods struggle to strike a balance between detection accuracy and efficiency. This study proposes a deep learning model named WTC-MobResNet, which integrates the architectures of MobileNet and ResNet and is specifically designed for WTC detection tasks. The model combines the lightweight characteristics of MobileNet with the residual learning capabilities of ResNet, enabling efficient extraction of WTC features from weather radar echo data and achieving precise identification of WTC. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed model achieves an ACC of 98.21%, a PRE of 97.52%, a POD of 98.99%, and an F1 score of 98.25%, outperforming several existing deep learning models in both detection accuracy and false alarm control. These results confirm the potential of WTC-MobResNet for real-world operational applications. Full article

The orthogonal time frequency space (OTFS) is a modulation designed to transmit data in high Doppler channels where the usage of the orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is challenging. The random padded OTFS (RP-OTFS) modulation, introduced recently, is an OTFS-like waveform optimized for more precise estimation of channel state information (CSI) and, in the case of integrated sensing and communication (ISAC), for radar detection as well. One of the main drawbacks of the RP-OTFS is the high level of interference between carriers (the inter-carrier interference—ICI) of Doppler-delay (DD) grid. In the article, we optimize the RP-OTFS waveform in terms of reducing the level of pilot-to-data interference and also offer a way to reduce the data carrier interference. The reduction in the pilot-to-data interference is achieved due to the introduction of the following: (1) redistributing interferences along the DD grid, and (2) special DD grid configuration. In turn, the reduction in data carrier interference is achieved by extrapolating the estimate of channel state information. The proposed approach allows us to reduce the influence of the interference component and, as a result, to improve the probability of correct demodulation in the ISAC RP-OTFS system. Various DD grid configurations for different use cases from a radar point of view are considered in the article. The questions of choosing appropriate values of the DD grid parameters depending on the operating environment are also discussed here. In simulations, the ICI-reduced RP-OTFS is compared with its predecessor, the regular RP-OTFS, and classical modulations: OFDM and zero-padded OTFS, and benefits of its usage are shown: lower bit error rate (BER) of the transmission and higher detection probability of the radar detection. Full article

This paper presents the design and implementation of a high-precision vehicle detection and classification system for toll stations on national highways in Colombia, leveraging LiDAR-based 3D point cloud processing and supervised machine learning. The system integrates a multi-sensor architecture, including a LiDAR scanner, high-resolution cameras, and Doppler radars, with an embedded computing platform for real-time processing and on-site inference. The methodology covers data preprocessing, feature extraction, descriptor encoding, and classification using Support Vector Machines. The system supports eight vehicular categories established by national regulations, which present significant challenges due to the need to differentiate categories by axle count, the presence of lifted axles, and vehicle usage. These distinctions affect toll fees and require a classification strategy beyond geometric profiling. The system achieves $89.9\%$ overall classification accuracy, including $96.2\%$ for light vehicles and $99.0\%$ for vehicles with three or more axles. It also incorporates license plate recognition for complete vehicle traceability. The system was deployed at an operational toll station and has run continuously under real traffic and environmental conditions for over eighteen months. This framework represents a robust, scalable, and strategic technological component within Intelligent Transportation Systems and contributes to data-driven decision-making for road management and toll operations. Full article

Accurate prediction of the F-factor averaged over one kilometer (FBAR), a critical wind shear metric, is essential for aviation safety. A central F-factor is used to compute FBAR. i.e., compute the value of FBAR at a point using a spatial interval beginning 500 m prior to the point and ending 500 m beyond the point. Traditional FBAR estimation using the Vicroy method suffers from limited vertical wind speed (W${\phantom{,}}_h$) accuracy, particularly in complex, non-idealized atmospheric conditions. This foundational study proposes a hybrid CNN-BiLSTM-Attention deep learning architecture that integrates spatial feature extraction, sequential dependency modeling, and attention mechanisms to address this limitation. The model was trained and evaluated on data generated by the industry-standard Airborne Doppler Weather Radar Simulation (ADWRS) system, using the DFW microburst case (C1-11) as a benchmark hazardous scenario. Following safety assurance principles aligned with SAE AS6983, the proposed model achieved a W${\phantom{,}}_h$ estimation RMSE (root-mean-squared deviation) of $0.623$ $\mathrm{m} {\mathrm{s}}^{-1}$ (vs. Vicroy’s $14.312$ $\mathrm{m} {\mathrm{s}}^{-1}$) and a correlation of 0.974 on 14,524 test points. This subsequently improved FBAR prediction RMSE by 98.5% (0.0591 vs. 4.0535) and MAE (Mean Absolute Error) by 96.1% (0.0434 vs. 1.1101) compared to Vicroy-derived values. The model demonstrated a 65.3% probability of detection for hazardous downdrafts with a low 1.7% false alarm rate. These results, obtained in a controlled and certifiable simulation environment, highlight deep learning’s potential to enhance the reliability of airborne wind shear detection for civil aircraft, paving the way for next-generation intelligent weather avoidance systems. Full article

In this study, four types of fall detection systems for seniors living alone using x-y scatter and Doppler range images measured from frequency-modulated continuous wave (FMCW) millimeter-wave (mmWave) sensors were introduced. Despite advancements in fall detection, existing long short-term memory (LSTM)-based approaches often struggle with effectively distinguishing falls from similar activities of daily living (ADLs) due to their uniform treatment of all time steps, potentially overlooking critical motion cues. To address this limitation, an attention mechanism has been integrated. Data was collected from seven participants, resulting in a dataset of 669 samples, including 285 falls and 384 ADLs with walking, lying, inactivity, and sitting. Four LSTM-based architectures for fall detection were proposed and evaluated: Raw-LSTM, Raw-LSTM-Attention, HOG-LSTM, and HOG-LSTM-Attention. The histogram of oriented gradient (HOG) method was used for feature extraction, while LSTM networks captured temporal dependencies. The attention mechanism further enhanced model performance by focusing on relevant input features. The Raw-LSTM model processed raw mmWave radar images through LSTM layers and dense layers for classification. The Raw-LSTM-Attention model extended Raw-LSTM with an added self-attention mechanism within the traditional attention framework. The HOG-LSTM model included an additional preprocessing step upon the RAW-LSTM model where HOG features were extracted and classified using an SVM. The HOG-LSTM-Attention model built upon the HOG-LSTM model by incorporating a self-attention mechanism to enhance the model’s ability to accurately classify activities. Evaluation metrics such as Sensitivity, Precision, Accuracy, and F1-Score were used to compare four architectural models. The results showed that the HOG-LSTM-Attention model achieved the highest performance, with an Accuracy of 95.3% and an F1-Score of 95.5%. Optimal self-attention configuration was found at a 2:64 ratio of number of attention heads to channels for keys and queries. Full article

Convective updrafts are one of the main characteristics of convective clouds, responsible for the convective mass flux and the redistribution of energy and condensate in the atmosphere. During the early stages of their lifecycle, convective clouds experience rapid cloud-top ascent manifested by a decrease in the geostationary IR brightness temperature ($T{B}_{IR}$). Under the assumption that the convective cloud top behaves like a black body, the ascent rate of the convective cloud top can be estimated as (${\displaystyle \frac{\partial T{B}_{IR}}{\partial t}}$), and it can be used to infer the near cloud-top convective updraft. The temporal resolution of the geostationary IR measurements and non-uniform beam-filling effects can influence the convective updraft estimation. However, the main shortcoming until today was the lack of independent verification of the strength of the convective updraft. Here, Doppler radar observations from the ESCAPE and TRACER field experiments provide independent estimates of the convective updraft velocity at higher spatiotemporal resolution throughout the convective core column and can be used to evaluate the updraft velocity estimates from the IR cooling rate for limited samples. Isolated convective cells were tracked with dedicated radar (RHIs and PPIs) scans throughout their lifecycle. Radial Doppler velocity measurements near the convective cloud top are used to provide estimates of convective updrafts. These data are compared with the geostationary IR and VIS channels (from the GOES satellite) to characterize the convection evolution and lifecycle based on cloud-top cooling rates. Full article

In high-frequency surface wave radar (HFSWR) systems, the retrieval of the directional wave spectrum has remained challenging, especially in the case of echoes from long ranges with a low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Therefore, a quadratic programming algorithm based on the regularization technique is proposed with an empirical criterion for estimating the optimal regularization parameter, which minimizes the effect of noise to obtain more accurate inversion results. The reliability of the inversion method is preliminarily verified using simulated Doppler spectra under different wind speeds, wind directions, and SNRs. The directional wave spectra inverted from a radar network with two multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems are basically consistent with those from the ERA5 data, while there is a limitation for the very concentrated directional distribution due to the truncated second order in the Fourier series. Further, in the field experiment during a storm that lasted three days, the wave parameters are calculated from the inverted directional spectra and compared with the ERA5 data. The results are shown to be in reasonable agreement at four typical locations in the core detection area. In addition, reasonable performance is also obtained under the condition of low SNRs, which further verifies the effectiveness of the proposed inversion algorithm. Full article