Effects of polarization and resolution on SAR ATR

Lincoln Laboratory is investigating the detection and classification of stationary ground targets using high resolution, fully polarimetric, synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery. A study is summarized in which data collected by the Lincoln Laboratory 33 GHz SAR were used to perform a comprehensive comparison of automatic target recognition (ATR) performance for several polarization/resolution combinations. The Lincoln Laboratory baseline ATR algorithm suite was used, and was optimized for each polarization/resolution case. Both the HH polarization alone and the optimal combination of HH, HV, and VV were evaluated; the resolutions evaluated were 1 ft×1 ft and 1 m×1 m. The data set used for this study contained approximately 74 km² of clutter (56 km² of mixed clutter plus 18 km² of highly cultural clutter) and 136 tactical target images (divided equally between tanks and howitzers).