Ballistic target recognition based on micro-motion characteristics using sequential HRRPs

The ballistic target recognition is much important to national missile defense system. However, it is difficult to identify the warhead from decoys by narrow-band radar due to their RCS´ similarity between warhead and decoys. A novel approach for ballistic target recognition is proposed in this paper. It uses the micro-motion characteristics extracted from sequential HRRPs to identify ballistic targets. The micro-motion characteristics parameters, such as radar view angle and precession parameters, are solved by computing the relative position motion curve of the strong scattering centers of the target. Compared with other methods, the micro-motion parameters extracted from sequential HRRPs are stable and exact, thus can improve the performance of recognition. The experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed method.