The Development of a Quick-Look Radar Processor for Detecting Small Sea Vessels

Advanced radar detection algorithms typically have high computational complexity, and the performance is traditionally quantified through offline processing of data. This paper presents the implementation of an extensible, low-complexity, user-friendly quick-look radar detector and visualiser – called QuickRAD – for robust detection of small sea vessels using flexible computing resources with mid-range specifications. QuickRAD aims to allow commodity hardware to be utilised in the field to rapidly process measured radar data during an experimental trial and thus provide feedback to the experiment coordinator on the quality of the recording. The program was tested using measured data of a challenging scenario mimicking an overturned boat at sea, and detection performance was assessed for different sets of algorithm parameters. Visually, the detection results illustrated accurate detection of the position of the boat. Additionally, performance was observed to be faster than the recording time, thus demonstrating the efficiency of QuickRAD.