Micro-Motion Extraction for Marine Targets by Multi-Pulse Delay Conjugate Multiplication and Layered Tracking

The detection and recognition of marine targets can be improved by utilizing the micro-motion induced by ocean waves. However, distinguishing and tracking overlapping targets is challenging when multiple extended targets overlap in the range dimension of the radar echo. In this paper, we propose a multi-pulse delay conjugate multiplication and layered tracking (MDCM-LT) algorithm for micro-motion trajectory tracking. The MDCM method is first applied to obtain the conjugate phase from the radar echo, which enables high-precision micro-motion extraction and overlapping state identification of extended targets. Then, the LT algorithm is proposed to track the sparse scattering points belonging to different extended targets. In our simulation, the root mean square errors of the distance and velocity trajectories were better than 0.277 [Formula: see text] and 0.016 [Formula: see text] , respectively. Our results demonstrate that the proposed method has the potential to improve the precision and reliability of marine target detection through radar.