Joint estimation algorithm for multi-targets’ motion parameters

• Published in: IET radar, sonar & navigation sonar & navigation, 2014-10, Vol.8 (8), p.939-945
• Main Authors: Tian, Jing, Cui, Wei, Lv, Xiao-lei, Wu, Shuang, Hou, Jian-gang, Wu, Si-liang
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Acceleration; Algorithms; Beams (radiation); discrete polynomial transform; first‐order Keystone transform; focused radar image method; Fourier transforms; fractional Fourier transform; Imaging; joint estimation algorithm; Lv transform; maximum likelihood estimation; maximum‐likelihood method; motion estimation; multitarget motion parameter estimation; Parameter estimation; Radar; radar antenna beam; Radar antennas; radar imaging; range walk correction; signal‐to‐noise ratio threshold; Transforms
• ISSN: 1751-8784; 1751-8792; 1751-8792
• DOI: 10.1049/iet-rsn.2013.0346

When multiple targets are within the same radar antenna beam and cannot be separated in the range dimension, the conventional imaging methods cannot be directly used to obtain a focused radar image. In this study, a new joint estimation algorithm for multi-targets’ motion parameters is proposed. In this method, the first-order Keystone transform is first applied to correct the range walk of multiple targets simultaneously, and then the Lv's transform is used to estimate the motion parameters of targets including velocity and acceleration. The signal-to-noise ratio threshold for the proposed method is also given. The proposed method is fast and can obtain the accurate parameter estimation without knowing the number of targets and their motion information. Experimental results demonstrate the performance of the proposed algorithm. Comparisons between the proposed method and other methods, the maximum-likelihood method, fractional Fourier transform and discrete polynomial transform, are performed, which show that the proposed method can efficiently obtain the accurate parameter estimation with low computational burden.