Association of detections using simultaneous monostatic and bistatic GMTI

In [1], [2] a simultaneous monostatic and bistatic GMTI technique has been proposed for improving target detection capabilities and situational awareness over the illuminated area. Specifically, it has been shown that: (i) detection can be guaranteed regardless of the target direction of motion, and (ii) the target velocity vector on ground can be estimated for targets detected in both datasets. In the latter case, a proper association of the monostatic and bistatic detections has to be performed. In [2], an association scheme is proposed based on the relocation of the targets on ground. While such a scheme is effective for sparsely populated target scenarios, it may fail if multiple closely spaced targets are present. In this paper the problem of correct association of simultaneous monostatic and bistatic target detections is addressed for a densely populated target scenario. In particular, different strategies to overcome this ambiguous detection association problem are proposed, by applying the simultaneous monostatic and bistatic GMTI in [1] to multiple subsequent CPIs. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is tested against a simulative realistic scenario.