Target classification in synthetic aperture radar using map-seeking circuit technology

Conventional target recognition approaches for SAR include template matching and feature-based classification. However, unlike visual imagery, Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) presents a unique challenge in that many attributes, such as scattering centers, are extremely pose dependent and wink in and out with even minor viewing geometry changes. This work implements a highly efficient biologically-inspired 3D template-based approach, the Map Seeking Circuit (MSC) algorithm, for target recognition in SAR. Instead of exhaustively searching a high dimensional state space, the MSC algorithm efficiently searches a superposition hypersurface to estimate target location and 3D pose. Results are shown from applying the algorithm to real SAR datasets.