Power centroid radar

• US 10,101,445 B2
• Filed: 04/29/2015
• Issued: 10/16/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 04/29/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: City College of New York
• Original Assignee: City College of New York
• Inventors: Feria, Erlan
• Primary Examiner(s): Bythrow, Peter M
• Application Number:
  US14/699,335
• Publication Number:
  US 20180074184A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,266 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 13/5242 with means for platform motion or scan motion compensation, e.g. airborne MTI
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 13/5244 Adaptive clutter cancellation specially adapted for airborne MTI, G01S13/5242
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 7/292 Extracting wanted echo-signals
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 7/2925 by using shape of radiation pattern
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 7/295 Means for transforming co-ordinates or for evaluating data, e.g. using computers
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 7/34 Gain of receiver varied automatically during pulse-recurrence period, e.g. anti-clutter gain control

Abstract

A system for signal processing is provided that obviates the use of prior-knowledge, such as synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery, in time compressed signal processing (i.e. it can be knowledge unaided). The knowledge-unaided power centroid (PC_KU) is found by evaluating a covariance matrix R_SCM for its moments m_i. Because R_SCM uses a sample signal, rather than SAR data, the power centroid PC_KU may be found without needing SAR data.

Claims

1. A radio signal processing system comprising:

an antenna for receiving a radio signal, wherein the antenna operates according to a mathematical antenna pattern (MAP);

a processor for processing the radio signal, the processor configured to perform a method for time compressed signal processing of the radio signal, the method comprising the steps of;

receiving the radio signal using the antenna;

calculating moments of a covariance matrix (R_SCM) of the radio signal, wherein the covariance matrix (R_SCM) is given by;

2. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the covariance matrix (R_SCM) is dynamic, and the step calculating the knowledge unaided power centroid (PC_KU) is performed dynamically as the covariance matrix (R_SCM) changes.

3. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the covariance matrix (R_SCM) is dynamic, and the step calculating the knowledge unaided power centroid (PC_KU) is performed dynamically in real-time as the covariance matrix (R_SCM) changes.

4. The system as recited in claim 2, wherein the antenna is a linear array antenna and the mathematical antenna pattern (MAP) is a uniform linear array (ULA).

5. The system as recited in claim 2, wherein the radio signal is a radar signal and the knowledge unaided power centroid (PC_KU) is calculated without synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery.

6. The system as recited in claim 1, wherein the set of N+M−

1 first row elements are second order statistical moments.

7. A moving target indicator (MTI) radar system comprising

an antenna for receiving a radar signal, wherein the antenna operates according to a mathematical antenna pattern (MAP);

a processor for processing the radar signal, the processor configured to perform a method for time compressed signal processing of the radar signal, the method comprising the steps of;

processing the radar signal received from the antenna,

dynamically calculating moments of a covariance matrix (R_SCM) of the radar signal as a moving target changes position, wherein the covariance matrix (R_SCM) is given by;

8. The system as recited in claim 7, wherein the antenna is a linear array antenna and the mathematical antenna pattern (MAP) is a uniform linear array (ULA).

9. The system as recited in claim 7, wherein the radar signal received from the antenna comprises a normalized steering vector (s) of the moving target and an interference plus noise vector (x).

10. The system as recited in claim 9, wherein the processor calculates a scalar output (y) by multiplying each of the normalized steering vector (s) of the moving target and the interference plus noise vector (x) by a weighting vector (w).

11. The system as recited in claim 7, wherein the radar signal comprises interference selected from the group consisting of range walk interference, clutter interference, jammer interference, internal-clutter motion interference, channel mismatch interference, antenna array misalignment angle (θ

_AAM) interference, and combinations thereof.

12. The system as recited in claim 7, wherein the set of N+M−

1 first row elements are second order statistical moments.

13. The system as recited in claim 7, wherein the knowledge unaided power centroid (PC_KU) is calculated without synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery.

14. A radio signal processing system comprising:

an antenna for receiving a radio signal, wherein the antenna operates according to a mathematical antenna pattern (MAP) comprising a plurality of MAP patterns for a corresponding plurality of angles;

data storage device that has a stored list of matrix-dependent clutter corrections Δ

PC(R_SCM) corresponding to normalized clutter covariances, each Δ

PC(R_SCM) correlating with a stored list of angles θ

′

the Δ

PC(R_SCM) given by