The goal of this research effort is to improve Space Domain Awareness (SDA) capabilities of current telescope systems through improved detection algorithms. Ground-based optical SDA telescopes are often spatially under-sampled, or aliased. This fact negatively impacts the detection performance of traditionally proposed binary and correlation-based detection algorithms. A Multiple Hypothesis Test (MHT) algorithm has been previously developed to mitigate the effects of spatial aliasing. This is done by testing potential Resident Space Objects (RSOs) against several sub-pixel shifted Point Spread Functions (PSFs). A MHT has been shown to increase detection performance for the same false alarm rate. In this paper, the assumption of a priori probability used in a MHT algorithm is investigated. First, an analysis of the pixel decision space is completed to determine alternate hypothesis prior probabilities. These probabilities are then implemented into a MHT algorithm, and the algorithm is then tested against previous MHT algorithms using simulated RSO data. Results are reported with Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curves and probability of detection, P_d, analysis.

Date Published: 13 May 2016
PDF: 11 pages
Proc. SPIE 9838, Sensors and Systems for Space Applications IX, 983804 (13 May 2016); doi: 10.1117/12.2220411

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 9838:
Sensors and Systems for Space Applications IX
Khanh D. Pham; Genshe Chen, Editor(s)