SAR Target Configuration Recognition via Two-Stage Sparse Structure Representation

A two-stage sparse structure representation algorithm which can preserve the manifold structure of the data is proposed for synthetic aperture radar target configuration recognition in this paper. Manifold structure of the data is preserved by two stages. In the training stage, taking advantage of both the sparse representation (SR) and manifold learning, local structure of the data is preserved in the reconstruction space, where SR-based recognition is realized. In the testing stage, two structure preserving factors based on the testing samples are embedded into the SR model to enhance structure preserving performance. The first one is constructed to preserve the local structure of the testing samples, which can guarantee the samples that are close to each other in the original space will also be close to each other in the sparse space. And the second one is established to preserve the distant structure of the testing samples, which can ensure the samples that are far from each other in the original space will also be far from each other in the sparse space. Manifold structure of the data is well captured and preserved by two stages. Experimental results on the moving and stationary target acquisition and recognition database demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.