Identification concerning different types of radar targets can be achieved
by using various radar signatures, such as one-dimensional (1-D) range prof
iles, 2-D radar images, and 1-D or 2-D scattering centres on a target. To s
olve the target identification problem, the authors utilise 1-D scattering
centres, which correspond to the highest peaks in the 1-D range profile, Th
e proposed approach obtains scale and translational-invariant features base
d on the central moments from the distribution of the 1-D scattering centre
s ori the target; these 1-D scattering centres can be extracted from variou
s techniques such as inverse fast Fourier transform (IFFT), fast root-multi
ple signal classification (fast root-MUSIC), total least squares-Prony (TLS
-Prony), generalised eigenvalues utilising signal subspace eigenvectors (GE
ESE), and the matrix-pencil (MP) algorithm. The information redundancy cont
ained in these features, as well as their dimensions, are further reduced v
ia the Karhunen-Loeve transform, followed by adequate scaling of the comput
ed central moments. The resulting small dimensional and redundancy-free fea
ture vectors are classified using the Bayes classifier. Finally, this new s
trategy for radar-target identification is demonstrated with data measured
in the compact range facility, and the above five different techniques for
1-D scattering centre extraction are compared and investigated in the conte
xt of tat-get identification.