JP2011185719A - Tracking radar device - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To improve a tracking maintenance rate by reducing target erroneous detection from an unnecessary reflected wave by using map information. <P>SOLUTION: A detection processing part 31 reads out map information of an area under observation at present from a map information storage device 50, creates filters (52, 54, 55) for plot detection for classifying as the outside of a tracking object, a region where an unnecessary reflected wave erroneously recognized as a reflected wave of a tracking target is generated, from the map information, and detects only a plot relative to a reflected wave from a region from which the region outside the tracking object is removed based on the filters (52, 54, 55) for plot detection. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2011,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a tracking radar device that reduces unnecessary signals such as clutter and improves tracking of targets such as aircraft and ships.

  A radar wave is emitted, for example, a reflected wave from a target such as a ship moving on the sea is received, a target track is extracted from the received wave, a target speed, a traveling direction, etc. are predicted from the observed values, and a target A tracking radar device that calculates a tracking value is known. Such a tracking radar apparatus is required to ensure high tracking performance even in an environment where unnecessary signals such as other targets and clutter exist in the vicinity of the tracking target. In this case, correlation processing for determining which of the observed values obtained from the sensor is the tracking target is important. Therefore, a method has been adopted in which an observed value closest to the predicted position is selected for the tracking target and used for tracking calculation. However, when tracking a ship on the ocean, the reflected signals from the land beyond the coastline are observed, and these unnecessary signals are reflected as reflected signals from the target, resulting in the target tracking being removed. There is a problem such as. In addition, there is a problem that the processing load increases when the number of clutter such as land is large. Furthermore, even when tracking an aircraft, there is a problem that a reflected wave from a mountain range or a high building is misrecognized as a target and tracking is removed.

  By the way, in order to make it possible to visually check where a target actually exists in a detection device such as a radar, map information such as a chart of the point corresponding to the target observation image is displayed on the display. There is a technique (see Patent Document 1, for example).

Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 9-318727

As described above, the conventional tracking radar device performs signal processing based on the reflected wave of the radar wave, and the reflected wave from the clutter causes a cross-correlation as a reflected wave from the target, resulting in the target. There was a problem such as removing the tracking. For example, in tracking for a water target, the water target got on land. For this reason, in order to improve the target tracking performance, it is necessary to improve the tracking maintenance rate by reducing the detection of unnecessary signals from clutter such as land.
On the other hand, in the case of a radar device that superimposes map information such as a chart of the point corresponding to the target observation image and displays it on the display, it is effective to make the observation image visible on the map, but the tracking result is accurate. This is not connected to the process, and it does not improve the processing load when the number of clutter such as land is large.

  The present invention has been made to solve the above-described problems, and a tracking radar device that improves the tracking maintenance rate by reducing target false detection from unnecessary reflected waves using map information. It is intended to obtain.

  The tracking radar device according to the present invention transmits a radar wave via an antenna by a transmitter / receiver to receive a reflected wave from a target, and a detection processing unit detects a plot which is a target candidate from the received signal, and a tracking processing unit In the tracking radar apparatus that estimates the target locus based on the target candidate plots that are sequentially detected and input by the map, a map information storage device that stores map information including the observation area is provided, and the detection processing unit stores the map information storage Read the map information of the area currently being observed from the device, create a plot detection filter that classifies areas that generate unnecessary reflected waves that are mistakenly recognized as reflected waves of the tracking target from the map information, and excludes them as tracking targets. Based on the detection filter, only the plot of the reflected wave from the region excluding the region not to be tracked is detected.

  According to the present invention, it is possible to apply signal processing that excludes reflected wave detection or reduces reflected wave detection on topography or the like where an unnecessary reflected wave is likely to occur using map information including an observation area. As a result, there is an effect of improving the tracking maintenance rate by reducing erroneous tracking due to unnecessary reflected waves.

It is a block diagram which shows the function structure of the tracking radar apparatus common to each embodiment of this invention. It is explanatory drawing which shows the process of map information use by the signal processor which concerns on Embodiment 1 of this invention. FIG. 10 is an explanatory diagram illustrating effects of processing according to the first embodiment. It is explanatory drawing which shows the process of map information use by the signal processor concerning Embodiment 2 of this invention. It is explanatory drawing which shows the process of map information use by the signal processor concerning Embodiment 3 of this invention.

Embodiment 1 FIG.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a functional configuration of a tracking radar apparatus common to the embodiments of the present invention.
In the figure, the transmitter / receiver 20 receives a reflected wave corresponding to the passage of time from a certain direction centering on the self-tracking radar device by periodically transmitting a radar wave of a pulse via the antenna 10. The reception signal output from the transceiver 20 is given to the signal processor 30 configured by the detection processing unit 31 and the tracking processing unit 32. The detection processing unit 31 detects a plot that is a target candidate from the received signal and outputs it to the tracking processing unit 32. The tracking processing unit 32 outputs the target trajectory estimated from the target candidate plots that are sequentially detected and input to the display 40 as target information and displays the target trajectory. The description so far is a general operation performed by a conventional tracking radar apparatus.

  In this invention, the map information storage device 50 storing the map information of the digital data is provided, and the map information is provided to the detection processing unit 31 of the signal processor 30. As shown in FIG. 2, the detection processing unit 31 performs processing using map information on the above-described target candidate detection plot. Here, if the captured target is a water target such as a ship, the position of the plot detected from the reflected wave of the received target will be on the sea, but if the target is in an area near the coastline, There is a possibility that the detection plot for the reflected wave from the land clutter may be misrecognized as a target and the tracking may be removed. Therefore, in the first embodiment, the map information 51 corresponding to the observation area is read from the map information storage device 50, and the classification filter (plot detection filter) 52 for dividing the plots existing in the land and sea areas. Create That is, the classification filter 52 forms a tracking target (sea) and non-tracking target (land) area, and the detection processing unit 31 corresponds to the tracking target from the target candidate detection plots using the classification filter 52. Only the plot corresponding to the sea to be extracted is extracted and output to the tracking processing unit 32. Therefore, the tracking processing unit 32 performs a tracking process using only a plot with high accuracy that is a reflected wave from the target, and outputs the result to the display 40 as target information.

  Next, the effect of the processing of the first embodiment will be described with reference to FIG. This shows a case where two plots A and B are obtained for a tracking target. Here, assuming that A is a plot obtained from the land area and B is a plot obtained from the sea area, A is not a tracking target and B is a tracking target by using map information. Conventionally, the plot A at a short distance from the predicted position where the tracking target is likely to exist is selected, but by using a classification filter that divides the tracking target obtained from the map information and the area outside the tracking target. The tracking maintenance rate can be improved by selecting only the plot B and performing tracking.

  As described above, according to the first embodiment, the map information storage device 50 that stores the map information including the observation area is provided, and the detection processing unit 31 stores the map of the area currently being observed from the map information storage device 50. Read the information and create a filter for plot detection that classifies the area that generates unnecessary reflected waves that are mistakenly recognized as reflected waves of the tracking target from the map information as excluded from tracking targets, and excludes tracking targets based on this plot detection filter Only the plot of the reflected wave from the region excluding the region is detected. In particular, in the first embodiment, a classification filter that excludes the land area from the tracking target and divides the sea area into the tracking target is used as the plot detection filter. Therefore, since signal processing that excludes tracking of reflected wave detection is performed on land where unwanted reflected waves are likely to occur, it is possible to reduce tracking errors by plotting unnecessary reflected waves from the land and improve the tracking maintenance rate. it can.

Embodiment 2. FIG.
FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram showing map information use processing by the signal processor according to Embodiment 2 of the present invention.
The detection processing unit 31 detects a target candidate plot from the received signal input from the transmitter / receiver 20, and performs processing using the map information on the target candidate detection plot as shown in FIG. Here, when the captured target is an air target such as an airplane, if a conventional tracking radar is used, there is a possibility that a plot detected from a reflected wave of a mountain range or the like may be misrecognized as a target and tracking may be removed. For this reason, the detection processing unit 31 reads the map information 53 corresponding to the observation area from the map information storage device 50, and selects an area with a fixed target such as a mountain range or a high building where an unnecessary reflected wave is likely to be generated. It detects and creates the MTI (Moving Target Indicator) filter 54. Then, an MTI process is performed using the MTI filter 54 so as not to detect unnecessary reflected waves from the target region. As a result, since a plot corresponding to a high altitude region such as a mountain range where an unnecessary reflected wave is likely to be generated is not detected, only the plot corresponding to the tracking target can be extracted from the target candidate detection plot, and the tracking processing unit No. 32 can perform a tracking process using only a plot with high accuracy that is a reflected wave from the target.

  As described above, according to the second embodiment, the plot detection filter created from the map information of the region currently being observed is fixed as a mountain range or a high building where unnecessary reflected waves are likely to be generated from the map information. An MTI filter 54 is created by detecting a region where a target is present, and a reflected wave from the target region is not detected by performing MTI processing based on the MTI filter 54. Therefore, by suppressing plot detection from unnecessary reflected waves, it is possible to reduce false tracking and improve the tracking maintenance rate.

Embodiment 3 FIG.
FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram showing map information use processing by the signal processor according to Embodiment 3 of the present invention.
The detection processing unit 31 detects a target candidate plot from the received signal input from the transceiver 20, and performs processing using map information on the target candidate detection plot as shown in FIG. Here, if the captured target is an air target, a conventional tracking radar may misrecognize a plot obtained from a reflected wave of a mountain range or the like as a target and remove tracking. For this reason, the map information 53 corresponding to the observation area is read from the map information storage device 50, the area such as a mountain range where an unnecessary reflected wave is likely to be generated is detected from the topographic information 53, and the detection criterion of the area is set to a high value. Setting to suppress detection of unwanted reflected waves. Thereby, since the plot detection operation corresponding to the unnecessary reflected wave is suppressed, only the plot corresponding to the tracking target can be extracted, and the tracking processing unit 32 can only perform the plot with a high probability of being a reflected wave from the target. Tracking processing using can be performed.

  As described above, according to the third embodiment, as a plot detection filter created from the map information of the area currently being observed, a region where unnecessary reflected waves such as mountain ranges are likely to be generated is detected from the map information. The detection of the reflected wave is suppressed by setting a high detection criterion value in the area. Therefore, by suppressing the detection of unnecessary reflected waves from mountains or the like, it is possible to reduce erroneous tracking and improve the tracking maintenance rate.

  10 antennas, 20 transceivers, 30 signal processors, 31 detection processing units, 32 tracking processing units, 40 displays, 50 map information storage devices, 51, 53 map information, 52, 54 classification filters (filters for plot detection), 55 Control filter (plot detection filter).

Claims (4)

A transmitter / receiver transmits a radar wave via an antenna to receive a reflected wave from a target, a detection processing unit detects a target candidate plot from the received signal, and a tracking processing unit sequentially detects and inputs the plot. In a tracking radar device that estimates a target trajectory based on a target candidate plot,
A map information storage device that stores map information including the observation area is provided.
The detection processing unit reads out map information of a region currently being observed from the map information storage device, and classifies an area where an unnecessary reflected wave that is erroneously recognized as a tracking target reflected wave from the map information is excluded as a tracking target. A tracking radar device that creates a plot detection filter and detects only a plot of a reflected wave from a region excluding a region not to be tracked based on the plot detection filter.   The detection processing unit creates a classification filter that excludes the land area from the tracking target and classifies the sea area as the tracking target as a plot detection filter created from the map information of the currently observed area. 2. The tracking radar apparatus according to claim 1, wherein only the plots to be tracked are extracted from the target candidate detection plots and output.   The detection processing unit detects a region corresponding to a fixed target such as a mountain range or a high building where unwanted reflected waves are likely to occur from the map information as a filter for plot detection created from the map information of the region currently being observed. MTI (Moving Target Indicator) filter is created, and MTI processing is performed based on the MTI filter so as not to detect the reflected wave from the MTI region, thereby extracting and outputting only the reflected wave plot to be tracked. The tracking radar device according to claim 1.   The detection processing unit detects a region such as a mountain range where unnecessary reflected waves are likely to occur from the map information as a plot detection filter created from the map information of the region currently being observed, and sets a high value for the detection criterion in the region 2. The tracking radar apparatus according to claim 1, wherein detection of reflected waves from the area is suppressed, and only a plot to be tracked is extracted and output.

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