HIGH-PERFORMANCE AUTOMATIC TARGET RECOGNITION THROUGH DATA-SPECIFIC VLSI

Under the Mojave configurable computing project, we have developed a s ystem for achieving high performance on an automatic target recognitio n (ATR) application through the use of configurable computing technolo gy. The ATR system studied here involves real-time image acquisition f rom a synthetic aperture radar (SAR), SAR images exhibit statistical p roperties which can be used to improve system performance. In this pap er,(1) the Mojave configurable computing system uses field programmabl e gate arrays (FPGA's) to implement highly specialized circuits while retaining the flexibility of programmable components. A controller seq uences through a set of specialized circuits in response to real-time events. Computer-aided design (CAD) tools have been developed to suppo rt the automatic generation of these specialized circuits. The resulti ng configurable computing system achieves a significant performance ad vantage over the existing solution, which is based on application spec ific integrated circuit (ASIC) technology.