Pattern of life for radar port and river security

Ground-based radar can provide inexpensive wide-area surveillance of river and port traffic for both security and emergency response. Electronically scanning the radar beam over multiple azimuthal angles rapidly provides extremely wide area coverage. A compact X-band radar was used to scan over a ninety degree sector on a river/harbor environment. An individual moving target indicator (MTI) track triggered a long-range camera, which pans and zooms to get a quality image and allows an exact identification of the mover. We demonstrate the simultaneous tracking of multiple vessels in a river environment along with the associated imagery over several days. We also evaluate the micro-Doppler signatures of different classes of small vessels, including kayaks and zodiacs, as well as pattern of life and port interactions. The pattern of life of a river is easy to analyze through radar. Because the tracks of normal activity build up over time, the abnormal activities can be extracted based on time of day, speed, position, class of ship, interaction with the shore, and heading. Our data was analyzed over several days and identified suspicious and unusual cases. Several cases turned out to be innocuous due to the short length of the data collect, such as fishing boats that were out during non-peak fishing times, but use of radar pattern of life approaches allows improved prioritization of tracks and additional assets. The addition of a pan/tilt/zoom camera improved the usability of the system by automatically providing a quality image in a modality that was easily understandable with minimal training. Networking the images to the user also provided a greater ease-of-use. The class of ship could be determined by the radar microDoppler of the vessel. The arm motion of a kayaker, for example, was clearly visible even from across the river. The radar had micro-Doppler capabilities that worked even while electronically scanning across the entire river, providing continuous tracks with classification. Port security also involves detecting the docking and unloading of material that may be contraband. We demonstrate a smugglingtype scenario viewed with the same small radar and show which parts of the scenario are visible to imagers and can be measured by the radar.