Track-before-detect algorithm for airborne radar system

Abstract

This study considers the detection of dim target via track-before-detect (TBD) in airborne radar system. Dim target detection by TBD is well-studied while aircraft ego-motion is not taken into account. Ego-motion of the aircraft (platform) causes traditional TBD method useless in airborne radar system by two reasons. On one hand, the movement of the aircraft causes measurement misaligned among different frames. On the other hand, state space and measurement space is non-one-to-one correspondence. Considering these two issues, the authors proposed a TBD algorithm for airborne radar based on plots (AR-P-TBD). First, they derived coordinate rotation and motion compensation formula, and convert each frame of measurement into a unified coordinate system to make these measurements aligned. Then, TBD processing in measurement space is implemented. It avoids the non-one-to-one correspondence between state space and measurement space. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of AR-P-TBD.

Keywords

• target tracking
• object detection
• motion compensation
• radar tracking
• airborne radar
• radar detection
• airborne radar based on plots
• aircraft movement
• ar-p-tbd
• tbd processing
• unified coordinate system
• motion compensation formula
• tbd algorithm
• measurement space
• state space
• traditional tbd method
• aircraft ego-motion
• dim target detection
• airborne radar system
• track-before-detect algorithm