Micro-motion dynamic and geometric parameters estimation of exo-atmospheric infrared targets

Abstract

The motion dynamics and geometric information are considered to be one of the most useful features for infrared (IR) targets recognition. Especially for the exo-atmospheric target, when a target undergoes micro-motion dynamics in the outer space, such as mechanical vibrations or rotations, it would induce amplitude modulations on signature of target projected area along the Line-of-Sight (LOS) of IR detection. The aim of this article is to estimate micro-motion dynamics and geometric parameters from the amplitude signature of target projected area. For that, we introduce a projection model of exo-atmospheric targets, derive formulas of signature induced by targets with spinning, tumbling and coning motion, and estimate related target parameters with heuristic optimization techniques. By analyzing the estimated results, we confirmed the effective-ness of our estimation procedures.