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Phenomenology

 
Multipath Channel Mitigation/Exploitation - LSI’s technical capabilities include rigorous physics based characterization of propagation channels.  Mitigation and exploitation experience include HF OTH radar, as well as low altitude/surface surveillance.  The figure below illustrates the utilization of modest frequency diversity and coherent range gate processing to not only maintain, but enhance detection of a low flying (30 ft) target using
a wideband linear FM X-band airborne radar operating from a 5,000 ft altitude.  The upper left figure represents the temporal window of the channel, and the upper right figure illustrates the multipath fading experienced by the linear FM waveform as a function of range.  The figure on the lower left illustrates the performance improvement that results in the interference region from frequency diversity.  The figure on the lower right combines frequency diversity with coherent range gate processing in the resolved regime, and formats the combined result to emulate the host radar’s display.  The overall range dependent performance is summarized in the figure below with the red line indicating the initial multipath fade conditions and the dark blue line indicating the detection performance enhancement achieved through frequency diversity and range gate processing.  Also indicated are the resolved and unresolved multipath regimes in addition to the intermediate region near the horizon where geometric optics techniques are no longer adequate to describe the propagation conditions.

Distributed Scatterer (Target) Characteristics - LSI maintains considerable expertise in distributed target and clutter scattering phenomenology for the purposes of enhanced detection, discrimination and identification.
  Military applications include automatic target recognition (ATR) combined with foliage penetration (FOPEN) and ground penetration (GPEN) surveillance sensors.  Techniques that mitigate and/or
exploit target and clutter scattering phenomenology also typically involve advanced signal processing concepts.  For example, the figure on the left illustrates the co-pol and cross-pol high resolution SAR signature of a distributed scatterer embedded in clutter.  The differences in the individual polarimetric image components illuminate the polarimetric diversity of the individual scattering centers that comprise the distributed scatterer.  LSI developed an extension to the Rayleigh quotient based polarimetric matched filter (PMF) (known as the distributed PMF (DPMF)) that exploits the individual scattering centers that comprise the distributed scatterer.  The DPMF response can be optimized for either detection, discrimination or identification.  The figure below illustrates a sample DPMF image result for the distributed scatterer shown on the left.  Also shown is the corresponding span image.  The DPMF result shown was formulated to enhance the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR).

A second example shown below illustrates the characterization of a distributed scatterer using coherent frame decompositions and reconstructions (time-frequency analysis techniques).  The top two figures represent full reconstructions (dotted line) and 75% energy reconstructions (solid line).  The bottom two figures illustrate the corresponding phase space signatures associated with the 75% reconstruction results.  Results for the Weyl-Heisenberg frame are shown on the left, and results for the affine (or wavelet) frame are shown on the right.  The results in both cases illustrate information compression and feature extraction useful for ATR.  The

Weyl-Heisenberg frame representation utilizes only 30 of the 1,521 terms for the 75% energy representation.  In contrast, the wavelet frame requires only 303 of the 4,920 terms for the 75% energy representation.  The examination of both (equivalent energy) results illuminate the unique aspects of different coherent frame representations, and motivates the use of physics based mixed time-frequency tilings as a means to provide the necessary discriminants for robust ATR.  LSI maintains considerable expertise in advanced time-frequency/time-scale analysis techniques with particular emphasis in the analysis of nonstationary processes and scatterer characterization.  Distributed scatterer modeling and analysis capabilities at LSI also include variations of the singularity expansion method (SEM) for resonance extraction and impulse response characterization, and micro-Doppler (vibration) discrimination.