Information Geometry-Based Track-Before-Detect Algorithm for Slow-Moving Fluctuating Target Detection

To treat the slow-moving fluctuating target detection issues, the information geometry-based track-before-detect algorithms, which combines the performance advantages of information geometry detectors and the multi-frame information integration ability of dynamic programming algorithm, are proposed in this article. The proposed methods are based on the Hermitian positive definite (HPD) manifold and power spectrum (PS) manifold, that the geometric properties of the target feature track and clutter track on the HPD or PS manifold are exploited for the integration of inter-frame target information. Specifically, the IG-based scoring function is designed to evaluate the candidate trajectories, and a general IG-based DP algorithm is deduced to obtain the trajectories with the maximum integration of scoring functions. Moreover, to avoid the performance degradation resulting from the illegal candidate trajectories, a stricter constraint for the trajectories of slow-moving target is established, and a corresponding efficient IG-based DP algorithm is deduced by utilizing the skipping transition. Experimentally, the superiority of the proposed methods have been validated with the real-recorded ship target echo data and sea clutter data. The experimental results show that the proposed methods can provide a signal-to-clutter ratio improvement of approximately 5.5 dB.