Dim target detection using high order correlation method

This work presents a method for clutter rejection and dim target track detection from infrared (IR) satellite data using neural networks. A high-order correlation method which recursively computes the spatio-temporal cross-correlations between data of several consecutive scans is developed. The implementation of this scheme using a connectionist network is presented. Several important properties of the high-order correlation method which indicate that the resultant filtered images capture all the target information are established. The simulation results obtained with this approach show at least 93% clutter rejection. Further improvement in the clutter rejection rate is achieved by modifying the high-order correlation method to incorporate the target motion dynamics. The implementation of this modified high-order correlation using a high-order neural network architecture is demonstrated. The simulation results indicate at least 97% clutter rejection rate for this method. A comparison is also made between the methods developed here and the conventional frequency domain three-dimensional (3-D) filtering scheme, and the simulation results are provided.<
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