Target Detection using Weather Radars and Electromagnetic Vector Sensors
Background
There are 150 nearly identical dual-polarized S-band Doppler weather surveillance radars in the USA, with an observation range of 230 − 460 km and a range resolution of 0.25 − 1 km, depending on the mode of operation. There is a lack of statistical signal model that considers signal-dependent clutter model for target detection with weather surveillance radar as illuminator of opportunity. Exploiting the polarimetric information about the target with the help of diversely polarized antennas such as electromagnetic vector sensors has not been explored.
Our Research
An illustration of a passive bi-static radar with weather radar as the illuminator of opportunity and electromagnetic vector sensor as the receiver.
- We propose a passive bistatic network, with weather surveillance radar as the transmitter and electromagnetic vector sensor as the receiver.
- No previous work on passive bistatic radar addressed employing a weather radar for target detection.
- We believe we are the first to consider polarization information for mitigating signal-dependent clutter in a passive bistatic radar.
- We propose a maximum likelihood solution to extract the signal-subspace from the received data contaminated by the clutter interference.
- We also propose a generalized likelihood ratio test detector that is robust to inhomogeneous clutter.
Publications
- G. V. Prateek, M. Hurtado, and A. Nehorai, “Target detection using weather radars and electromagnetic vector sensors,” Signal Processing, vol. 137, pages 387-397, Aug 2017. [pdf] [slides]
- G. V. Prateek, M. Hurtado, and A. Nehorai, “Passive bistatic radar using weather radars and electromagnetic vector senors,” 38th Conference on Radar Meterology, Chicago, Aug 2017. [poster]