A new algorithm of automatic target-position acquisition for long-range surveillance radar

As an important component of a modem radar system, the automatic target-position acquisition (ATPA) sub-system is responsible for estimating the radar targets´ center positions. Among all the ATPA algorithms, the old-fashioned binary-processing (BP) algorithm is in an almost-obsolete state. Today the most widely used algorithm is the area-center (AC) algorithm. But the centroid algorithm has gained more and more attention because it has better precision and requires simpler data structures. However, all the above algorithms are unable to completely solve the problem of signal expansion in the range dimension, which is caused by pulse-compression techniques. For long-range surveillance radar systems, if this problem remains unresolved, it is impossible to achieve high resolution of azimuth and range. We propose a 2-dimensional centroid algorithm based on the: original centroid algorithm, which is only 1-dimensional. We have also designed a simplified peak-searching (PS) algorithm according to the characteristics of long-range surveillance radar. Analysis and simulation shows that this algorithm has relatively high estimation precision, and its implementation scheme is very easy. It has already been successfully used in a long-range surveillance radar system