Classification Of Automotive Targets Using Inverse Synthetic Aperture Radar Images

Abstract: We present a framework for simulating realistic inverse synthetic aperture radar images of automotive targets at millimeter wave frequencies. The model incorporates radar scattering phenomenology of commonly found vehicles along with range-Doppler based clutter and receiver noise. These images provide insights into the physical dimensions of the target, the number of wheels and the trajectory undertaken by the target. The model is experimentally validated with measurement data gathered from an automotive radar. The images from the simulation database are subsequently classified using both traditional machine learning techniques as well as deep neural networks based on transfer learning. We show that the ISAR images offer a classification accuracy above 90% and are robust to both noise and clutter.