N152-083       TITLE:  Synthetic Aperture Radar Approaches for Small Maritime Target Detection and Discrimination

TECHNOLOGY AREAS:  Air Platform, Sensors

ACQUISITION PROGRAM:  PMA 299 H-60 Program Office 

The technology within this topic is restricted under the International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR), 22 CFR Parts 120-130, which controls the export and import of defense-related material and services, including export of sensitive technical data, or the Export Administration Regulation (EAR), 15 CFR Parts 730-774, which controls dual use items. Offerors must disclose any proposed use of foreign nationals

(FNs), their country(ies) of origin, the type of visa or work permit possessed, and the statement of work (SOW) tasks intended for accomplishment by the FN(s) in accordance with section 5.4.c.(8) of the solicitation. Offerors are advised foreign nationals proposed to perform on this topic may be restricted due to the technical data under US Export Control Laws. 

OBJECTIVE:  Enhance military capabilities through improved detection, tracking and discrimination of small maritime targets at higher altitudes and at comparatively longer standoff ranges than is currently achievable by utilizing non-traditional synthetic aperture radar (SAR) based approaches.

DESCRIPTION:  Traditionally SAR has been used to provide imagery of fixed structures on land. Objects moving in the scene were unfocused and generally not of value. For large vessels at sea in relatively calm conditions, some advanced focusing algorithms are able to provide high quality imagery but are not useful for small vessels with very dynamic movements. For maritime environments, the community has relied on low altitude (<1000’) non-coherent techniques that leverage lower clutter returns present in at these low grazing angles. Coherent techniques based on SAR processing are far less sensitive to grazing angle, allowing the platform to operate at higher altitudes and steeper grazing angles (perhaps 10’s of degrees). In addition, they offer improved performance due to a richer set of potential discriminants. Increased standoff ranges are attained using the coherent techniques as well as allowing the use of lower cost, lower peak powered radars. The suggested approach differs from traditional SAR in that the objective is not to “focus” the target but rather to leverage the nature of the target signature and the coherence of the background to improve detection, tracking and discrimination.

PHASE I:  Design and demonstrate the feasibility of a SAR based small maritime target approach for detection and tracking using available field data or synthetic data.

PHASE II:  Mature the detection and tracking approach to be suitable for integration into an existing Navy airborne maritime surveillance radar system. Develop a set of discriminates using field data for a limited set of target types identified by the Navy.

PHASE III:  Refine and improve the implementation for integration on Navy maritime surveillance radar systems suitable for platforms such as the MQ-8C, MQ-4C, MH-60R and P-8A.

REFERENCES:  

1.                Tang Li-bo, Li Dao-jing, Hong Wen, and Cao Fang, “High Resolution SAR Imaging of Moving Ships,” Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, 2005. IGARSS '05. 2005 IEEE International Proceedings, 25-29 July 2005, pp. 3329-3332.

2.                A.D Lazarov and Ch.N.Minchev. (2009). SAR Ship Target by Induced Complementary Movement. Recent Advances in Space Technologies, 4th International Conference. Retrieved from

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?tp=&arnumber=5158242&queryText%3DSAR+Ship+Targ et+Imaging+by+Induced+Complementary+Movement

KEYWORDS:  Maritime Surveillance; Target Detection; Target Tracking; Radar Surveillance; Coherent Signal Processing; Synthetic Aperture Radar (Sar)

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