3-D Imaging of Vehicles using Wide Aperture Radar

An image processing procedure is presented to construct a three-dimensional representation of a vehicle from a set of two-dimensional circular synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images. Given a previously generated digital elevation map, a third dimension is inferred from layover and polarization. With high data rates and circular flight paths, SAR scenes may be large relative to the standoff distance. Consequently, variations in elevation angles (with respect to terrain) across the scene become crucial for identifying signatures. The proposed 3D processing inverts elevated point layover to provide partial invariance to elevation angle and produces an unordered set of scattering centers with attributes including an azimuth attribute to preserve anisotropy. The proposed processing is demonstrated on both measured and simulated data.

[1]  M. Soumekh,et al.  3-D E-CSAR imaging of a T-72 tank and synthesis of its SAR reconstructions , 2003 .

[2]  S. Lee,et al.  Shooting and bouncing rays: calculating the RCS of an arbitrarily shaped cavity , 1989 .

[3]  Xiaojian Xu,et al.  Subpixel Processing for Target Scattering Center Extraction from SAR Images , 2006, 2006 8th international Conference on Signal Processing.

[4]  Bir Bhanu,et al.  Exploiting azimuthal variance of scatterers for multiple-look SAR recognition , 2002, SPIE Defense + Commercial Sensing.

[5]  Lee C. Potter,et al.  Attributed scattering centers for SAR ATR , 1997, IEEE Trans. Image Process..

[6]  Michael Lee Bryant.  Multisensor staring exploitation , 2008, SPIE Defense + Commercial Sensing.

[7]  Emre Ertin,et al.  Polarimetric classification of scattering centers using M-ary Bayesian decision rules , 2000, IEEE Trans. Aerosp. Electron. Syst..

[8]  Randolph L. Moses,et al.  IFSAR processing for 3D target reconstruction , 2005, SPIE Defense + Commercial Sensing.

[9]  Christine M. Netishen,et al.  Performance of a High-Resolution Polarimetric SAR Automatic Target Recognition System , 1993 .

[10]  G. J. Owirka,et al.  Optimal polarimetric processing for enhanced target detection , 1991, NTC '91 - National Telesystems Conference Proceedings.

[11]  Emre Ertin,et al.  Multibaseline IFSAR for 3D target reconstruction , 2008, SPIE Defense + Commercial Sensing.

[12]  Bir Bhanu,et al.  Increasing the discrimination of synthetic aperture radar recognition models , 2002 .

[13]  Rong Wang,et al.  Composite class models for SAR recognition , 2003, SPIE Defense + Commercial Sensing.

[14]  W. Eric L. Grimson,et al.  Probabilistic optimization approach to SAR feature matching , 1996, Defense, Security, and Sensing.

[15]  Jean Ponce,et al.  Computer Vision: A Modern Approach , 2002 .

[16]  William C. Snyder,et al.  Model-based fusion of multi-look SAR for ATR , 2002, SPIE Defense + Commercial Sensing.

[17]  Larry L. Horowitz,et al.  Benefits of aspect diversity for SAR ATR: fundamental and experimental results , 2000, SPIE Defense + Commercial Sensing.

[18]  Eric R. Keydel,et al.  MSTAR extended operating conditions: a tutorial , 1996, Defense, Security, and Sensing.

[19]  D. Giuli,et al.  Polarization diversity in radars , 1986, Proceedings of the IEEE.

[20]  W. Eric L. Grimson,et al.  Bounding performance of peak-based target detectors , 1997, Defense, Security, and Sensing.

[21]  Lee C. Potter,et al.  Three-dimensional resolution for circular synthetic aperture radar , 2007, SPIE Defense + Commercial Sensing.

[22]  K. S. Arun,et al.  Least-Squares Fitting of Two 3-D Point Sets , 1987, IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence.

[23]  Lee C. Potter,et al.  Discrimination of civilian vehicles using wide-angle SAR , 2008, SPIE Defense + Commercial Sensing.

[24]  LeRoy A. Gorham,et al.  A challenge problem for 2D/3D imaging of targets from a volumetric data set in an urban environment , 2007, SPIE Defense + Commercial Sensing.

[25]  G. Franceschetti,et al.  Motion compensation errors: effects on the accuracy of airborne SAR images , 2005, IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems.

[26]  Dominick A. Giglio.  Algorithms for Synthetic Aperture Radar Imagery , 1994 .

[27]  Hao Ling,et al.  Scattering center parameterization of wide-angle backscattered data using adaptive Gaussian representation , 1997 .

[28]  Peter E. Buxa,et al.  Implementation and analysis of a fast backprojection algorithm , 2006, SPIE Defense + Commercial Sensing.

[29]  F. Gini,et al.  Multibaseline cross-track SAR interferometry using interpolated arrays , 2005, IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems.

[30]  C. Balanis.  Advanced Engineering Electromagnetics , 1989 .

[31]  Maurice Clerc,et al.  The particle swarm - explosion, stability, and convergence in a multidimensional complex space , 2002, IEEE Trans. Evol. Comput..

[32]  Edward J. Jaselskis,et al.  Dielectric Properties of Asphalt Pavement , 2003 .

[33]  Charles V. Jakowatz,et al.  Spotlight-Mode Synthetic Aperture Radar: A Signal Processing Approach , 1996 .

[34]  Stuart R. DeGraaf,et al.  SAR imaging via modern 2-D spectral estimation methods , 1998, IEEE Trans. Image Process..

[35]  Peng-Yeng Yin,et al.  Particle swarm optimization for point pattern matching , 2006, J. Vis. Commun. Image Represent..

[36]  Charles V. Jakowatz,et al.  An implementation of a fast backprojection image formation algorithm for spotlight-mode SAR , 2008, SPIE Defense + Commercial Sensing.

[37]  Lee C. Potter,et al.  Model-based classification of radar images , 2000, IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory.

[38]  Stuart R. DeGraaf,et al.  SAR imaging via modern 2D spectral estimation methods , 1994, Defense, Security, and Sensing.

[39]  Julie Ann Jackson,et al.  Canonical Scattering Feature Models for 3D and Bistatic SAR , 2010, IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems.

[40]  Randolph L. Moses,et al.  Image domain feature extraction from synthetic aperture imagery , 1999, 1999 IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing. Proceedings. ICASSP99 (Cat. No.99CH36258).

[41]  Kush R. Varshney,et al.  Sparse Representation in Structured Dictionaries With Application to Synthetic Aperture Radar , 2008, IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing.

[42]  Raja Suresh.  Defense Transformation and Net-Centric Systems 2008 , 2007 .

[43]  Lee C. Potter,et al.  Model-based Bayesian feature matching with application to synthetic aperture radar target recognition , 2001, Pattern Recognit..

[44]  J. Keller,et al.  Geometrical theory of diffraction. , 1962, Journal of the Optical Society of America.

[45]  Charles V. Jakowatz,et al.  Beamforming as a foundation for spotlight-mode SAR image formation by backprojection , 2008, SPIE Defense + Commercial Sensing.