Detection & tracking method for radar target based on plot-track quality evaluation

摘要

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.