Recent ATR and fusion algorithm improvements for multi-band sonar imagery

摘要

An improved automatic target recognition processing string has been developed. The overall processing string consists of pre-processing, subimage adaptive clutter filtering, normalization, detection, data regularization, feature extraction, optimal subset feature selection, feature orthogonalization and classification processing blocks. The objects that are classified by the 3 distinct ATR strings are fused using the classification confidence values and their expansions as features, and using "summing" or log-likelihood-ratio-test (LLRT) based fusion rules. The utility of the overall processing strings and their fusion was demonstrated with new high-resolution three-frequency band sonar imagery. The ATR processing strings were individually tuned to the corresponding three-frequency band data, making use of the new processing improvement, data regularization; this improvement entails computing the input data mean, clipping the data to a multiple of its mean and scaling it, prior to feature extraction and resulted in a 3:1 reduction in false alarms. Two significant fusion algorithm improvements were made. First, a nonlinear exponential Box-Cox expansion (consisting of raising data to a to-be-determined power) feature LLRT fusion algorithm was developed. Second, a repeated application of a subset Box-Cox feature selection / feature orthogonalization / LLRT fusion block was utilized. It was shown that cascaded Box-Cox feature LLRT fusion of the ATR processing strings outperforms baseline "summing" and single-stage Box-Cox feature LLRT algorithms, yielding significant improvements over the best single ATR processing string results, and providing the capability to correctly call the majority of targets while maintaining a very low false alarm rate.