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Acta Aeronautica et Astronautica Sinica ›› 2024, Vol. 45 ›› Issue (14): 630188.doi: 10.7527/S1000-6893.2024.30188

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Detection of air balloon with polarimetric weather radar

Jiankai HUANG, Jiapeng YIN(), Mengyun AN, Chen PANG, Yongzhen LI, Xuesong WANG   

  1. College of Electronic Science and Technology,National University of Defense Technology,ChangSha 410073,China
  • Received:2024-01-18 Revised:2024-04-09 Accepted:2024-05-13 Online:2024-07-25 Published:2024-05-29
  • Contact: Jiapeng YIN E-mail:yinjiapeng@nudt.edu.cn
  • Supported by:
    National Natural Science Foundation of China(61971429);Research Program of National University of Defense Technology(ZK21-25);Hunan Province Postgraduate Research Innovation Project(QL20220012)

Abstract:

In recent years, the emergence of anomalous aerial situations induced by air balloons has posed significant threats to national security, airspace security, and civil aviation safety. Air balloons, characterized by their composition of medium materials and smooth surface, elude conventional radar detection. To address the inadequacy of current methods in detecting air balloons at airports and similar facilities, this study proposes a novel detection approach based on polarimetric fusion utilizing the coherent pulse compression ratio. The coherent pulse compression ratio of air balloon targets is leveraged to discern and filter out ground clutter. Then, polarization fusion processing is conducted to reduce false alarms, and further refinement is made using morphological image analysis to eliminate spurious targets. Results of processing real-world air balloon data collected by dual-polarization weather radar shows that this method demonstrates effective detection and reduced background clutter and RF interference false alarms. The proposed approach, considering the scattering characteristics of air balloons, exhibits a performance enhancement of 3.2 dB over conventional methods. Notably, it equips existing polarimetric weather radar systems with air balloon detection and early warning capabilities without compromising their current operational functionalities. With its computational efficiency and practical implementation feasibility, this method holds promise for wide-spread integration into existing polarimetric weather radar systems.

Key words: polarization, weather radar, air balloon, coherence pulse correction ratio, ground clutter

CLC Number: