Battlefield awareness via synergistic SAR and MTI exploitation

Abstract

Battlefield awareness" is critical to the success of future military operations. Existing and new sensor platforms will provide the necessary surveillance data; DARPA is developing the systems needed to turn the sensor data into meaningful information for the commanders. A central thrust of these efforts exploits the synergistic relationship between SAR and MTI radar. Used together, they offer comprehensive coverage of the battlefield. THE REQUIREMENT FOR WIDE-AREA SURVEILLANCE To prevail in the diverse arenas of future conflicts, the United States and its allies must achieve "dominant battlefield awareness" which means, simply stated, a knowledge of everything occurring on the battlefield [1]. To apply their assets optimally, the commanders in the theater must know the locations, identities and, ideally, the intentions of the enemy forces. The challenge to the R&D community is to develop the systems and technologies to provide battlefield awareness [2]. Sensors, of course, generate the data about events on the battlefield, and radar, in particular, must play a major role because of its day-and-night, all-weather capability [3,4]. Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) can provide high-resolution imagery of stationary objects. Moving Target Indicator (MTI) radar can detect and locate moving targets. Working together, they offer the potential for comprehensive coverage of vehicle targets on the battlefield. The primary distinctions between the historical use of sensors, in reconnaissance roles, and tomorrow's surveillance needs are: (1) the size of the areas that must be searched; (2) the sensor resolution required; and (3) the rapidity and frequency with which the search must be done. To support battlefield awareness, sensors will be asked to cover regions larger than 400 km on a side at high resolution, with a revisit time of significantly less than an hour. We label an operation of this scale "wide-area surveillance". During Desert Storm, the U.S. and its Coalition allies stressed the limits of existing sensor systems by attempting to perform wide-area surveillance of the vast Iraqi desert. The U-2 and Joint STARS 1 were employed in the theater to gather the needed information. Although significant intelligence needs were met by the surveillance operation, serious deficiencies were

Estimating Speed and Direction of Small Dynamic Targets through Optical Satellite Imaging

“…Problems with previous MTI sensors include the limited availability of timely sensor coverage, the lack of wide-area, high-resolution imagery, and the inability to discriminate between moving vehicles of differing types [2]. These limitations have been reduced somewhat by the Synthetic-Aperture RADAR (SAR) MTI sensors.…”

“…MTIs employing Synthetic Aperture RADAR (SAR) imagery are used in the commercial sector for detecting ice movement, deforestation tracking, and border surveillance [1]. Military applications involve MTIs to gain knowledge of the enemy [2] by recognizing and tracking hostile force movements, deployment patterns, and supply histories.…”

Evolutionary Methods for Learning Bayesian Network Structures

“…Bayesian networks are encountered in various applications like filtering junk e-mail (Sahami et al, 1998), assistance for blind people (Lacey & MacNamara, 2000), meteorology (Cano et al, 2004), traffic accident reconstruction (Davis, 2003), image analysis for tactical computeraided decision (Fennell & Wishner, 1998), market research (Jaronski et al, 2001), user assistance in sofware use , fraud detection (Ezawa & Schuermann, 1995), human-machine interaction enhancement (Allanach et al, 2004). The growing interest, since the mid-nineties, that has been shown by the industry for Bayesian models is growing particularly through the widespread process of interaction between man and machine to accelerate decisions.…”

SAR Motion Compensation Using GPS/IMU

“…SAR 시스템은 여러 위치에서 수신된 레이더 신 호를 위상이 일치하도록 코히어런트(coherent)하게 합성하여 방위 분해능을 향상시킨다. 이러한 원리를 이용하여 얻은 고해상도의 SAR 영상은 항공기, 인 공위성 및 우주선에 탑재되어 육지, 해양, 극지, 대 기, 그리고 행성 원격 탐사에 있어서 중요한 자료를 제공하고 있다 [2] . …”