Multi-frame data fusion techniques for ATR of ship targets from multiple ISAR images

This paper deals with the topic of Automatic Target Recognition (ATR) of Non Cooperative Targets. Specifically the focus is on the ATR of ships from multiple ISAR images. An investigation on different techniques for the fusion of the information provided by multiple image frames is presented. The techniques exploit the principles of multi-feature based ATR and apply them to the case of availability of several images. The recognition process makes use of a wire-frame models library which undergoes a step of candidate models selection before feeding the target model declaration step. Both cases of centralized and decentralized data fusion techniques are considered. The performance of the proposed techniques is investigated in depth by means of simulated data. Moreover the paper provides a comparison of the results of the proposed techniques when applied to live ISAR images of ship targets.