Workshop 2.2
Applications of Synthetic Aperture Radar

Dr. Leslie Novak - ALPHATECH,,Inc.

Thu, 29 April 2004, 1:30 PM - 5:30 PM

Abstract

This workshop session will present a state-of-the-art survey of several important applications of Synthetic Aperture Radar(SAR). We will focus on applications involving fully polarimetric SAR imagery as well as single polarization SAR imagery Applications include: the detection and recognition of targets in SAR imagery, terrain clutter characterization, and detection of targets under trees and in the open using SAR change detection (coherent change detection, polarimetric change detection, etc). Examples of each of these radar applications will be demonstrated using high-resolution, fully polarimetric (and for comparison, single polarization ) SAR data.. A fully polarimetric SAR sensor is described and algorithms for optimum processing of the polarimetric data are presented, including the polarimetric whitening filter (PWF) and the polarimetric matched filter (PMF). A template-based target recognition system is described and performance results versus resolution and polarization are summarized..Super-resolution processing algorithms are applied to the SAR data and performance improvements are quantified; target recognition performance results are presented for 10- and 20-target classifiers using a large data set of very good quality, high resolution SAR imagery gathered by the Sandia X-band sensor. Additional topics include: target recognition performance comparisons using 1-D high range resolution (HRR) data versus 2-D SAR data; performance of the MSTAR model-based target recognition system; SAR change detection at microwave frequencies (X-band) and at low foliage penetration frequencies (UHF,VHF).

Bio

Leslie Novak received his PhD from UCLA. He joined ALPHATECH in Dacember, 2003. Previously he worked at MIT Lincoln Laboratory where his position was Senior Staff in Division 10, assigned to the ISR Systems Group. At Lincoln Laboratory he was involved in the development and testing of target detection and recognition algorithms for synthetic aperture radar (SAR) systems. He developed and tested polarimetric change detection algorithm for the DARPA FOPEN program. He has published numerous papers on optimum processing of polarimetric radar data (including the polarimetric whitening filter and the polarimetric matched filter) and on SAR superresolution processing applied to the radar target recognition problem. Previously he was with Raytheon Company, Bedford, Mass., where he was involved with the design of the digital signal processor for the Patriot system. Also, he developed and tested SAR correlation algorithms for Raytheon?s pulse Doppler radar map matching system. At Hughes Aircraft Company he developed Extended Kalman Filter tracking algorithms for the TPQ-36 and TPQ-37 artillery- and mortar-locating radar systems. He also was with Autonetics, Anaheim, Calif., where he performed analytical studies of various radar systems.