Maritime ATR using Classifier Combination and High Resolution Range Profiles

A maritime automatic target recognition system is developed that performs ship classification using one-dimensional high resolution range profiles. Five physically based features are defined and are extracted from both VV and HH polarizations resulting in a 10-dimensional feature vector. A nonlinear classifier combination approach involving a neural network combiner along with three individual classifiers (Bayes, nearest neighbor, and neural network) is proposed. A decision confidence measure based on the classifier discriminants is developed using a nonparametric estimation approach. The confidence measure enables the system to reject samples that have a low decision confidence. The performance of the proposed neural network based combination is compared with individual classifiers and a number of other combination rules. The results show that this combination can provide high recognition accuracy along with a high probability of declaration. The performance in the presence of samples from not-before-seen classes is also investigated. A new nearest neighbor confidence thresholding approach is developed to aid the neural network combiner in rejecting these samples.