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 x 1 ft and 1 m x 1 m The data set used for this study contained approximately 74 km(2) of clutter (56 km(2) of mixed clutter plus 18 km(2) of highly cultural clutter) and 136 tactical target images (divided equally between tanks and howitzers).