APPLICATION OF MAXIMUM-LIKELIHOOD-ESTIMATION TO RADAR IMAGING

An efficient maximum likelihood (ML) estimator to obtain the scatterin g center locations of a target and the relative scattering level of th ese scattering centers from the scattered field data is described, In the proposed method, hit estimation is carried out in the image domain rather than in the frequency-aspect domain, A two-dimensional (2-D) i nverse Fourier transform is used to transfer the scattered field data from frequency-aspect domain to the image domain (down-range/cross-ran ge), As expected, the scattered field data in the image domain has som e regions with high energy, The samples in the high-energy regions are used to obtain the initial guess for the ML estimator as well as for hit estimation, The ML estimator in the image domain is applied to bot h simulated and experimental scattered fields of some targets.