Open AccessDetection & tracking method for radar target based on plot‐track quality evaluation
Author(s) -
Xia Yonghong,
Zhang Ning,
Kuang Huaxing,
Zhang Yutao
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
the journal of engineering
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2051-3305
DOI - 10.1049/joe.2019.0163
Subject(s) - computer science , plot (graphics) , radar , track (disk drive) , artificial intelligence , tracking (education) , extractor , detector , computer vision , set (abstract data type) , pattern recognition (psychology) , remote sensing , mathematics , engineering , geology , psychology , telecommunications , pedagogy , statistics , operating system , process engineering , programming language
A joint target detection and tracking method based on plot‐track quality evaluation (PTQE‐D&T) is proposed here. The presented method consists of three consecutive steps. First, a set of candidate plots is extracted from the Detector and Plot‐Extractor, where the plot quality is calculated simultaneously based on multi‐dimensional echoes constituting the plot. Then, a track‐before‐detect (TBD) processor based on dynamic programming (DP) is utilised to jointly elaborate the observations from multiple scans and outputs potential tracks to be confirmed. Finally, a confirmation strategy is introduced via plot‐track quality evaluation. Experimental results are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method, where two data sets collected from a ground‐based surface‐search radar and a ship borne 3D radar are used. Moreover, the proposed PTQE‐D&T structure is totally consistent with conventional radar data processing architecture, meaning that it is promising in engineering applications.