Simulation Study on Detection and Estimation of Closely Spaced Optical Targets

Abstract

The observed signal which originates from two point targets may exhibit only one apparent peak when they are located within one detector width. The Akaike information criterion and a maximum likelihood estimator are used to detect and estimate such unresolved targets. For target separation between 3/4 and 1 detector width the detection rate is high, the estimator is unbiased and the estimation variance is close to the Cramer-Rao bound. The performance degrades greatly when the separation becomes smaller. This loss in performance is attributed to the increasingly interference between the two targets and the difficulty in providing a 'good' initial guess for the estimator.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Mar 18, 1980
Accession Number
ADA088098

Entities

People

  • Ming-jer Tsai

Organizations

  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Materials and Manufacturing Processes
  • Sensors
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Algorithms
  • Computations
  • Computer Programming
  • Computers
  • Defense Systems
  • Detection
  • Detectors
  • Estimators
  • Mathematics
  • Monte Carlo Method
  • Optical Detectors
  • Probability
  • Simulations
  • Statistical Algorithms
  • Statistics
  • Warning Systems

Fields of Study

  • Engineering

Readers

  • Adaptive Control and Estimation with Uncertainty in Dynamic Systems.
  • Astronomy/Astrophysics
  • Statistical inference.

Technology Areas

  • Space
  • Space - Space Objects