Detection and recognition of target signatures in sensory data obtained by synthetic aperture radar (SAR), forward- looking infrared, or laser radar, have received considerable attention in the literature. In this paper, we propose a feature based target classification methodology to detect and classify targets in cluttered SAR images, that makes use of selective signature data from sensory data, together with a neural network technique which uses a set of trained networks based on the Random Neural Network (RNN) model (Gelenbe 89, 90, 91, 93) which is trained to act as a matched filter. We propose and investigate radial features of target shapes that are invariant to rotation, translation, and scale, to characterize target and clutter signatures. These features are then used to train a set of learning RNNs which can be used to detect targets within clutter with high accuracy, and to classify the targets or man-made objects from natural clutter. Experimental data from SAR imagery is used to illustrate and validate the proposed method, and to calculate Receiver Operating Characteristics which illustrate the performance of the proposed algorithm.

Date Published: 15 September 1998
PDF: 11 pages
Proc. SPIE 3370, Algorithms for Synthetic Aperture Radar Imagery V, (15 September 1998); doi: 10.1117/12.321854

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 3370:
Algorithms for Synthetic Aperture Radar Imagery V
Edmund G. Zelnio, Editor(s)