Search Results (36)

The spaceborne-airborne bistatic radar (SABR) system employs a spaceborne transmitter and an airborne receiver, offering significant advantages, such as wide coverage, outstanding anti-stealth capabilities, and notable resistance to jamming. However, SABR operates in a downward-looking configuration, and due to the separation of the transmitter and receiver, non-side-looking array reception, and the effects of Earth’s rotation, clutter exhibits both spatial-temporal coupling and distance dependence. These factors cause substantial expansion in spatial and temporal frequency domains, leading to severe degradation in radar detection performance for moving targets. This paper establishes an SABR clutter signal model that applies to arbitrary geometric configurations to respond to these challenges. The paper uses this model to analyze the non-side-looking clutter characteristics in a geostationary spaceborne-airborne bistatic radar configuration. Furthermore, the paper investigates the impact of various observation areas and geometric configurations on detection performance, using SCNR loss as the performance index. Finally, this paper gives suggestions on the transceiver’s geometric configuration and the observation area selection. Full article

Bistatic radar exhibits spatial isomerism and diverse configurations, leading to unique clutter characteristics distinct from those of monostatic radar. The clutter rank serves as a pivotal indicator of clutter characteristics, enabling the quantification of clutter severity. Space-time adaptive processing (STAP) is a critical technique to detect moving targets, and clutter rank determines the number of independent and identically distributed (IID) training samples and the degree of freedom (DOF) for effective suppression of clutter that STAP requires. Therefore, the accurate estimation of clutter rank for bistatic radar can provide a crucial indicator for designing and constructing STAP processors, thereby facilitating fast and efficient clutter suppression in bistatic radar systems. This study is based on the idea that clutter rank is the number of prolate spheroidal wave function (PSWF) orthogonal bases utilized for approximating the clutter signal. Firstly, the challenge of utilizing PSWF orthogonal bases for approximating the clutter signal in bistatic radar is elucidated. This pertains to the fact that, unlike monostatic radar clutter, bistatic radar clutter is not capable of being expressed as a single-frequency signal. The clutter rank estimation for bistatic radar is thus derived as the frequency bandwidth estimation. Secondly, to achieve this estimation, the frequency distribution of each individual scattering unit is investigated, thereby determining their extending frequency broadening (EFB) as compared to that of single-frequency. Subsequently, the integral average of EFB across the entire range bin is computed, ultimately enabling the acquisition of bistatic radar’s frequency bandwidth. Finally, the estimation method is extended to non-side-looking mode and limited observation areas with pattern modulation. Simulation experiments confirm that our proposed method provides accurate clutter rank estimations, surpassing 99% proportions of large eigenvalues across various bistatic configurations, observation modes, and areas. Full article

The extensive deployment of wind farms has significantly impacted the detection capabilities of space–air bistatic radar (SABR) systems. Although space–time adaptive processing techniques are available, their performance is significantly degraded, and even unable to suppress clutter. This paper explores the geometric configuration of the SABR system and the selection of detection areas, establishing a space–time clutter model that addresses the effects of wind turbine clutter (WTC). Expressions for spatial and Doppler frequencies have been derived to deeply analyze the characteristics of clutter spreading. Building on this, the paper extends two-dimensional space–time data to three-dimensional azimuth–elevation–Doppler data. It proposes a three-dimensional space–time multi-beam (STMB) strategy incorporating the Ordering Points to Identify the Clustering Structure (OPTICS) clustering algorithm to suppress WTC effectively. This algorithm selects WTC samples and applies OPTICS clustering to the clutter-suppressed data to achieve this effect. Simulation experiments further verify the effectiveness of the algorithm. Full article

The traditional sparse recovery (SR) space-time adaptive processing (STAP) algorithms are greatly affected by grid mismatch, leading to poor performance in airborne bistatic radar clutter suppression. In order to address this issue, this paper proposes an SR STAP algorithm for airborne bistatic radars based on atomic selection under the Bayesian framework. This method adopts the idea of atomic selection for the process of Bayesian inference, continuously evaluating the contribution of atoms to the likelihood function to add or remove atoms, and then using the selected atoms to estimate the clutter support subspace and perform sparse recovery in the clutter support subspace. Due to the inherent sparsity of clutter signals, performing sparse recovery in the clutter support subspace avoids using a massive number of atoms from an overcomplete space-time dictionary, thereby greatly improving computational efficiency. In airborne bistatic radar scenarios where significant grid mismatch exists, this method can mitigate the performance degradation caused by grid mismatch by encrypting grid points. Since the sparse recovery is performed in the clutter support subspace, encrypting grid points does not lead to excessive computational burden. Additionally, this method integrates out the noise term under a new hierarchical Bayesian model, preventing the adverse effects caused by inaccurate noise power estimation during iterations in the traditional SR STAP algorithms, further enhancing its performance. Our simulation results demonstrate the high efficiency and superior clutter suppression performance and target detection performance of this method. Full article

Space–time adaptive processing (STAP) based on sparse recovery achieves excellent clutter suppression and target detection performance, even with a limited number of available training samples. However, most of these methods face performance degradation due to grid mismatch, which impedes their application in bistatic clutter suppression. Some gridless methods, such as atomic norm minimization (ANM), can effectively address grid mismatch issues, yet they are sensitive to parameter settings and array errors. In this article, the authors propose a data and model-driven algorithm that unfolds the iterative process of atomic norm minimization into a deep network. This approach establishes a concrete and systematic link between iterative algorithms, extensively utilized in signal processing, and deep neural networks. This methodology not only addresses the challenges associated with parameter settings in traditional optimization algorithms, but also mitigates the lack of interpretability issues commonly found in deep neural networks. Moreover, due to more rational parameter settings, the proposed algorithm achieves effective clutter suppression with fewer iterations, thereby reducing computational time. Finally, extensive simulation experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm in clutter suppression for airborne bistatic radar. Full article

In recent years, the high-frequency hybrid sky-surface wave radar (HSSWR) has been increasingly used for target detection applications. Nevertheless, the specific bistatic system layout and the phase path disturbances induced by the ionospheric propagation channel may severely spread the sea clutter spectrum, thereby deteriorating the detection ability of the HSSWR for slow-moving targets. In this work, a novel subspace method based on the hybrid use of the amplitude and phase estimator (APES) and the orthogonal projection (OP) in the spatial–temporal domain, denoted as the APES-OP method, is proposed to suppress the spreading first-order sea clutter of the HSSWR. The distribution characteristics of targets and first-order sea clutter in the spatial–temporal domain were investigated, and a time-domain subspace signal model was adopted to describe targets perturbed by ionospheric phase path modulation. An APES filter was adopted to filter out the potential targets with a traversal approach to avoid attenuating desired signals while suppressing sea clutter. After that, sampling data from multi-channels and slow-time domains at the cell under test were employed to construct a spatial–temporal matrix, which was then utilized to obtain the sea clutter subspace by singular value decomposition. Simulation results indicate that the proposed algorithm can suppress sea clutter while retaining the target, even if the target is buried by sea clutter. The processing results of measured data further demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed algorithm. After sea clutter suppression, the target obscured by clutter can be revealed, and the signal-to-clutter ratio of the target is greatly improved. Full article

The looking-down mode of space airship bistatic radars faces complex sea–land clutter, and the mode of wide-range surveillance and the over-sight detection of the satellite platform generates a low SNR and range–Doppler ambiguity. The method traditionally used involves the transmission of multiple Pulse Repetition Frequencies (PRFs) and correlating them to solve the ambiguity. However, with a low SNR, the traditional disambiguation fails due to the large number of false alarms and target omissions. In order to solve this problem, a new algorithm for multi-target joint detection and range–Doppler disambiguation based on an ambiguity matrix is presented. Firstly, all possible state values corresponding to the ambiguous sequence are filled into the ambiguity matrix one by one. Secondly, the state values in the matrix cell are divided into several groups of subsequences according to the PRF. By disambiguating multiple sets of subsequences, performing subsequence fusion, and then undertaking point aggregation, the targets can be effectively detected in scenarios with a strong clutter rate, the false alarms can be suppressed, and the disambiguation of the range and Doppler is completed. The simulation shows that the proposed algorithm has the strong ability to detect targets and perform ambiguity resolution in the scenario of a multi-target and multi-false alarm. Full article

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. Full article

Compared with traditional active detection radar, non-cooperative bistatic radar has a series of advantages, such as a low cost and low detectability. However, in real-life scenarios, it is limited by the non-cooperation of the radiation source and the bistatic geometric model, resulting in a low target signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and unstable detection between frames in the radar scanning cycle. The traditional detect-before-track (DBT) method fails to exploit adequately the target information and is incapable of achieving consistent and effective tracking. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a two-stage track-before-detect (TBD) method based on deep learning. This method employs a low-threshold detection network to identify the target initially, followed by utilizing the model method to ascertain potential tracks. Subsequently, a diverse range of network structures are employed to extract and integrate position information, innovation score, and target structural information from the track in order to obtain the target track. Experimental results demonstrate the method’s ability to achieve multi-target tracking in highly cluttered environments, where the higher the number of frames processed, the better the target tracking effect. Moreover, the method exhibits real-time processing capabilities. Hence, this method provides an effective solution for target tracking in non-cooperative bistatic radar systems. Full article

Passive Bistatic Radar (PBR) has significant civilian and military applications due to its ability to detect low-altitude targets. However, the uncontrollable characteristics of the transmitter often lead to subpar target detection performance, primarily due to a low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Coherent accumulation typically has limited ability to improve SNR in the presence of strong noise and clutter. In this paper, we propose an adversarial learning-based radar signal enhancement method, called radar signal enhancement generative adversarial network (RSEGAN), to overcome this challenge. On one hand, an encoder-decoder structure is designed to map noisy signals to clean ones without intervention in the adversarial training stage. On the other hand, a hybrid loss constrained by $L_1$ regularization, $L_2$ regularization, and gradient penalty is proposed to ensure effective training of RSEGAN. Experimental results demonstrate that RSEGAN can reliably remove noise from target information, providing an SNR gain higher than 5 dB for the basic coherent integration method even under low SNR conditions. Full article

Passive bistatic radar research is essential for accurate 3D target tracking, especially in the presence of missing or low-quality bearing information. Traditional extended Kalman filter (EKF) methods often introduce bias in such scenarios. To overcome this limitation, we propose employing the unscented Kalman filter (UKF) for handling the nonlinearities in 3D tracking, utilizing range and range-rate measurements. Additionally, we incorporate the probabilistic data association (PDA) algorithm with the UKF to handle cluttered environments. Through extensive simulations, we demonstrate a successful implementation of the UKF-PDA framework, showing that the proposed method effectively reduces bias and significantly advances tracking capabilities in passive bistatic radars. Full article

In order to reduce the sea clutter interference in the detection of sea surface targets, we propose a bistatic sea clutter suppression method based on compressed sensing optimization in this paper. The proposed method mitigates the interference effect by reconstructing and cancelling out the sea clutter. Since the fixed sparse base is not always completely applicable for the sparse representation of sea clutter, we propose a sparse base optimization algorithm based on transfer learning to convert the fixed sparse base into an adaptive one. Moreover, we introduce a sensing matrix optimization algorithm to decrease the cross-correlation coefficient between the measurement matrix and the sparse base matrix, which can enhance the signal reconstruction quality. Finally, we use the orthogonal matching pursuit algorithm to reconstruct the sea clutter and employ the reconstructed results to cancel and suppress the sea clutter. The simulation results demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms the traditional methods such as the root time-domain cancellation method and the singular value decomposition method (SVD). Therefore, the proposed method has great practical significance for the detection of bistatic sea surface targets. Full article

This article presents the problem of passive radar vessel detection in a real coastal scenario in the presence of sea and wind farms’ clutter, which are characterised by high spatial and time variability due to the influence of weather conditions. Deterministic and adaptive beamforming techniques are proposed and evaluated using real data. Key points such as interference localisation and characterisation are tackled in the passive bistatic scenario with omnidirectional illuminators that critically increase the area of potential clutter sources to areas far from the surveillance area. Adaptive beamforming approaches provide significant Signal-to-Interference improvements and important radar coverage improvements. In the presented case study, an aerial target is detected 28 km far from the passive radar receiver, fulfilling highly demanding performance requirements. Full article

When the transmitter is in motion, the airborne passive bistatic radar (PBR) has a complex clutter geometry and lacks independent and identically distributed training samples in clutter estimation and suppression. In order to solve these problems, this paper proposes a space–time adaptive processing (STAP) algorithm based on root off-grid sparse Bayesian learning. The proposed algorithm first models the space–time base of the dictionary as an adjustable state. Then, the positions of those dynamic bases are optimized by iterating a maximum expectation algorithm. In this way, the off-grid error in clutter estimation can be eliminated even when the modeling grid is wide. To further improve the accuracy of clutter estimation, the proposed algorithm eliminates the error caused by samples with singular values in the root off-grid sparse Bayes learning by artificially adding pseudorandom noise and using hypothesis testing. The simulation results show that the proposed algorithm achieves better performance than the existing algorithms. Full article

This paper presents a passive bistatic radar (PBR) configuration using a global navigation satellite system as an illuminator of opportunity for the rotor blade feature extraction of a helicopter. Aiming at the strong fixed clutter in the surveillance channel of the PBR, a novel iteration clutter elimination method-based singular-value decomposition approach is proposed. Instead of the range elimination method used in the classic extended cancellation algorithm, the proposed clutter elimination method distinguishes the clutter using the largest singular value and by remove this value. At the same time, the fuselage echo of the hovering helicopter can also be suppressed along with the ground clutter, then the rotor echo of this can be obtained. In the micro-motion feature extraction, the mathematic principle of the flash generation process in the time–frequency distribution (TFD) is derived first. Next, the phase compensation method is applied to achieve the time–frequency flash shift in the TFD. After this, the center frequencies of the standard flashes in the TFD are compared with the standard frequency dictionary. The mean l1 norm is utilized to estimate the feature parameters of the helicopter rotor. In the experiments, the scattering point model and the physical optics facet model demonstrate that the proposed method can obtain more accurate parameter estimation results than some classic algorithms. Full article