Correlation methods for aircraft identification from fully polarized radar range profiles

There is a variety of ways to partially characterize an aircraft using radar. A very simple and rapid way to characterize an aircraft is through the use of high resolution range profiles. Hudson and Psaltis (1993) investigate the use of real radar range profiles for identification purposes, they concentrate on a correlator-based system, and achieve good results. In this paper, we extend their work to fully polarized situation. The results of our experiments show that correct identification rates of five scale-models aircraft are 100%, 95%, 92%, 100%, 100% and suggest that reliable aircraft identification is possible provided estimated aspect information and fully polarized profiles are used