Global Scattering Center Model Extraction of Radar Targets Based on Wideband Measurements

The scattering center model represents the scattering characteristics of radar targets at high frequencies by a set of point scatterers. Such a model is useful in scattering analysis, data compression and target recognition. We propose a methodology to extract the scattering center model from wideband measurements at sparsely distributed aspect angles. It exploits the regular variation in the ID projective location and the slow variation in the scattering coefficient of stable scattering centers at adjacent aspects, and greatly cuts down the original data amount compared to other methods. The extracted model contains the stable scattering centers of the target and is effective in a large angular extent. It can be used to reconstruct the target signatures such as RCS data and radar images at any aspect in this angular extent and at any frequency in or near the original measuring band. Examples using both simple and complex targets demonstrate the validity of this technique.