GMM-based target classification for ground surveillance Doppler radar

An automatic target recognition (ATR) algorithm, based on greedy learning of Gaussian mixture model (GMM) is developed. The GMMs were obtained for a wide range of ground surveillance radar targets such as walking person(s), tracked or wheeled vehicles, animals, and clutter. Maximum-likelihood (ML) and majority-voting decision schemes were applied to these models for target classification. The corresponding classifiers were trained and tested using distinct databases of target echoes, recorded by ground surveillance radar. ML and majority-voting classifiers obtained classification rates of 88% and 96%, correspondingly. Both classifiers outperform trained human operators.