Application of ICA technique to PCA based radar target recognition

In this paper, the ICA (independent component analysis) technique is applied to PCA (principal component analysis) based radar target recognition. The goal is to identify the similarity between the unknown and known targets. The RCS (radar cross section) signals are collected and then processed to serve as the features for target recognition. Initially, the RCS data from targets are collected by angular-diversity technique, i.e., are observed in directions of different elevation and azimuth angles. These RCS data are first processed by the PCA technique to reduce noise, and then further processed by the ICA technique for reliable discrimination. Finally, the identification of targets will be performed by comparing features in the ICA space. The noise effects are also taken into consideration in this study. Simulation results show that the recognition scheme with ICA processing has better ability to discriminate features and to tolerate noises than those without ICA processing. The ICA technique is inherently an approach of high-order statistics and can extract much important information about radar target recognition. This property will make the proposed recognition scheme accurate and reliable. This study will be helpful to many applications of radar target recognition.