Occlusion Handling in Radar for Detection of Obstacles Based on Tracking Model

Abstract

A simple method to improve detection and false alarm rates in obstacle detection applications is tracking objects in time. However, the performance of trackers is heavily dependent on good continuity of the tracking process. Occlusions of objects are a key challenge for continuous tracking and may cause a tracker to disassociate from its target. In the famework of radar for detection of obstacles, especially in a multi-target environment, occlusions of objects frequently occur, thus deteriorating the effectiveness of a tracker. In this work, the phenomenology of such occlusions is discussed, and a method for handling occlusion is presented The effectiveness of this method is demonstrated with an extended Kalman filter, which tracks measurements taken in drive tests and in-flight tests with a pulse-Doppler polarimetric radarfor detection ofwires andpylons.