Track-Before-Detect for Sensors with Complex Measurements

Abstract

Track-Before-Detect (TkBD) is a paradigm that combines the target detection and estimation processes that are usually sequentially applied to sensor data in a conventional system. Under TkBD the single frame detector is removed and the tracker is supplied with the whole sensor image. Detection decisions are then shifted to the output of the tracker which is able to use temporal correlation to improve the decision performance. A fundamental measure used by most TkBD approaches is the likelihood ratio of the sensor data and this is formed as the product over individual cell likelihoods under the assumption of spatially independent noise. However, that approach exploits only the envelope of the known sensor point spread function. This article presents an approach for determining the data likelihood ratio that also includes phase information. This alternative likelihood ratio formulation is shown to both improve the discrimination of targets from noise and reduce the computation overhead of the algorithm.

Open PDF

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jul 09, 2009
Accession Number
ADA533000

Entities

People

  • B. Cheung
  • M. G. Rutten
  • S. J. Davey

Organizations

  • Defence Science and Technology Group

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Materials and Manufacturing Processes
  • Sensors

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Accuracy
  • Algorithms
  • Bessel Functions
  • Computations
  • Detection
  • Detectors
  • Electrical Engineering
  • Engineering
  • Errors
  • Estimators
  • False Alarms
  • Intensity
  • Matched Filters
  • Measurement
  • Phase Shift
  • Probability
  • Warning Systems

Readers

  • Computer Vision.
  • Maritime and Naval Warfare Studies
  • Statistical inference.