A Novel Method for Low-Speed Dim Small Target Detection

Low-speed dim small targets are not easily detected by radar in a clutter environment. In this paper, we propose a novel approach to improve the detection probability of low-speed dim small targets, which is to convert radar data into two-dimensional images to achieve background noise suppression. Firstly, we extract the data of the target and its surroundings by setting the detection domain and make the radar data map into the data of 256 gray grades for image processing. In order to suppress clutter, we develop the improved Bilateral filter (IBF) and apply the Doppler velocity as a weight term of the Gaussian function. Combined with the weight term of spatial distance, the detection domain can be significantly enhanced. Then, the target region contour is extracted by the adaptive threshold segmentation method from the background, and the target focused is accumulated, combining with Doppler velocity. The results show that the proposed method can effectively keep the edge of the target domain and weaken the noise background, thereby improving the detection probability of the target.