Bernoulli track‐before‐detect smoothing for maritime radar

Abstract

Abstract Detection and tracking of small targets in sea clutter using a high‐resolution radar is a challenging problem as the sea surface constantly moves in a complex manner, with rough seas creating strong target‐like returns. Recently, a Bernoulli track‐before‐detect (TBD) filter has been developed for an airborne scanning radar in the maritime domain. Its purpose is to detect and track short‐exposure targets by using the radar in a fast scanning mode. The current paper investigates the potential improvement in detection and tracking performance of the Bernoulli TBD filter by incorporating a backward smoothing step. The developed algorithm, referred to as the Bernoulli TBD forward‐backward smoother (FBS) for maritime radar, is making a delayed decision by taking into account multiple future scans of radar data. A numerical analysis of a joint detection and tracking error with a fixed‐lag smoothing is presented, as a function of the number of delay lags, signal‐to‐interference ratio and the sea clutter spikiness.