Vibration measurement using coherent laser radar (LADAR) is a promising way to identify air targets at long range. Laser vibrometers can remotely measure the velocity of micrometric displacements and thus exhibit the target surface vibration frequencies. Some of these frequencies are modal frequencies, which result from the target structure. They define a unique signature and allow target identification to be performed. As vibration amplitudes are not reliable, we choose to consider only frequency positions. In this article, we explain an "extended identification" method which takes into account cumulative signatures in space and time to improve global system identification performance. Using a nearest neighbor classifier and a suitable metric taking into account a simple off-line processing of measured data, the recognition algorithm leads to good identification rates and very low rejection rates for a nine class problem. We show a strong improvement of the identification rate thanks to the "extended identification" method.

Date Published: 19 May 2005
PDF: 11 pages
Proc. SPIE 5807, Automatic Target Recognition XV, (19 May 2005); doi: 10.1117/12.602702

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 5807:
Automatic Target Recognition XV
Firooz A. Sadjadi, Editor(s)