Attributed scattering centers for SAR ATR.

High-frequency radar measurements of man-made targets are dominated by returns from isolated scattering centers, such as corners and flat plates. Characterizing the features of these scattering centers provides a parsimonious, physically relevant signal representation for use in automatic target recognition (ATR). In this paper, we present a framework for feature extraction predicated on parametric models for the radar returns. The models are motivated by the scattering behaviour predicted by the geometrical theory of diffraction. For each scattering center, statistically robust estimation of model parameters provides high-resolution attributes including location, geometry, and polarization response. We present statistical analysis of the scattering model to describe feature uncertainty, and we provide a least-squares algorithm for feature estimation. We survey existing algorithms for simplified models, and derive bounds for the error incurred in adopting the simplified models. A model order selection algorithm is given, and an M-ary generalized likelihood ratio test is given for classifying polarimetric responses in spherically invariant random clutter.