Detection and identification of simple wire targets in white Gaussian noise using ultra-wideband radar

Radar target identification, as witnessed by the plethora of the literature on the topic, is an important problem of considerable interest to many civilian and military agencies. The number of signatures even for a small target library can become quite large, since, in general, a unique return is produced for each new target aspect. Any robust target identification algorithm must adequately address this issue. The extinction pulse (E-pulse) and other related techniques, which are based on a singularity expansion method description of the radar return, indeed boast an aspect independent identification algorithm. However, as demonstrated in this paper, the performance of these techniques in white Gaussian noise is inferior to the method described here. In this paper, we develop a new method based on a generalized likelihood ratio test (GLRT) to perform target identification in the presence of white Gaussian noise. As with the E-pulse technique, our method takes advantage of the parsimonious singularity expansion representation of the radar return. In addition, sufficient statistics and simple practical implementations of a GLRT are presented. Simulation results using various thin wire targets are presented contrasting the performance of the GLRT to the E-pulse technique as a function of signal-to- noise ratio.This dissertation also addresses the issue of target detection in Gaussian noise for wideband radar systems. As in the discrimination problem, the singularity expansion representation of the transient radar return and Bayesian detection theory are used to develop an aspect independent detection method based on a generalized likelihood ratio test (GLRT). The resulting decision rule has a non-central chi2 distribution which is used to analyze the performance of the GLRT in terms of the probability of detection (PD) and the probability of false alarm (PF). Results illustrating the performance of the GLRT for two different thin wire targets are displayed in the form of receiver operating characteristics. Simulation results are generated to verify the analytical receiver operating characteristics.