The early history of pulse compression radar-the development ofAN/FPS-17 coded-pulse radar at Lincoln Laboratory

The development of pulse compression radar at MIT Lincoln Laboratory is related on the basis of the author's personal recollections. He describes the formation of the Radar Techniques Group, the development of the concept, the first system constructed, and the selection of an appropriate code for the transmitted waveform     

Foliage penetration experiment

This series papers describes analyses of a foliage penetration experiment undertaken by MIT Lincoln Laboratory to assess the ability of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) to detect targets under trees. Data were taken using the NASA/JPL UHF, L-, C-band fully polarimetric SAR over a forested area in Maine in July 1990. Future experiments are planned to measure the polarimetric properties of clutter and targets using the latest ultrawideband sensors with submeter resolutions and fully polarimetric data collection capabilities     

Performance of 10- and 20-target MSE classifiers

MIT Lincoln Laboratory is responsible for developing the ATR (automatic target recognition) system for the DARPA-sponsored SAIP program; the baseline ATR system recognizes 10 GOB (ground order of battle) targets; the enhanced version of SAIP requires the ATR system to recognize 20 GOB targets. This paper presents ATR performance results for 10- and 20-target mean square error (MSE) classifiers using high-resolution SAR (synthetic aperture radar) imagery.     

Foliage attenuation and backscatter analysis of SAR imagery

The ability of a synthetic aperture radar (SAR) to detect targets under foliage is in part determined by the attenuation suffered by radiation propagating through the foliage and the backscatter from the foliage. MIT Lincoln Laboratory made measurements of foliage attenuation and backscatter using the NASA/JPL-UHF, L-, C-band fully-polarimetric SAR in July 1990. In this experiment, a 48 km² forested area near Portage, Maine was imaged. Twenty-seven 8 ft trihedral corner reflectors were arrayed throughout the imaged area in order to measure foliage attenuation. Ground truth was recorded at the time of the experiment in order to correlate the attenuation and backscatter results with foliage biophysical properties. The probability densities for foliage attenuation and for backscatter are determined as functions of frequency, polarization, and depression angle     

Multichannel whitening of SAR imagery

The presence of speckle in synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery makes image interpretation more difficult and worsens the performance of algorithms designed to detect objects in the imagery. Image processing techniques to reduce speckle usually do so at the expense of spatial resolution. Multichannel whitening is one image processing technique that reduces image speckle while maintaining spatial resolution. Multichannel whitening is applied to imagery recorded during a foliage penetration experiment undertaken by MIT Lincoln Laboratory using the NASA/JPL UHF, L-, C-band fully polarimetric SAR in July 1990. In this experiment, a 50 km² forested area near Portage, Maine was imaged. Twenty-seven 8 ft trihedral corner reflectors were arrayed throughout the imaged area beneath the foliage in order to measure foliage attenuation. The detection performance for corner reflectors under foliage is compared for the raw data and whitened data, and the predictions of a product model for the degree of speckle reduction are compared with the data     

CFAR behavior of adaptive detectors: an experimental analysis

We conduct an experimental analysis for assessing the constant false alarm rate (CFAR) behavior of four coherent adaptive radar detectors in the presence of experimentally measured clutter data. To this end we exploit several data files containing both land, lake, and mixed land and sea clutter, collected by two radar systems (the MIT Lincoln Laboratory Phase-One radar and the McMaster IPIX radar) at different polarizations, range resolutions, and frequency bands. The results show that all the receivers, in the presence of real data, don't respect their nominal probability of false alarm (P/sub fa/), namely they exhibit a false alarm rate higher than the value preassigned at the design stage. Nevertheless one of them, the recursive persymmetric adaptive normalized matched filter (RP-ANMF) is very robust, in the sense that it presents an acceptable displacement from the nominal P/sub fa/, in correspondence of all the analyzed scenarios.     

Statistical analyses of measured radar ground clutter data

The performance of ground-based surveillance radars strongly depends on the distribution and spectral characteristics of ground clutter. To design signal processing algorithms that exploit the knowledge of clutter characteristics, a preliminary statistical analysis of ground-clutter data is necessary. We report the results of a statistical analysis of X-band ground-clutter data from the MIT Lincoln Laboratory Phase One program. Data non-Gaussianity of the in-phase and quadrature components was revealed, first by means of histogram and moments analysis, and then by means of a Gaussianity test based on cumulants of order higher than the second; to this purpose parametric autoregressive (AR) modeling of the clutter process was developed. The test is computationally attractive and has constant false alarm rate (CFAR). Incoherent analysis has also been carried out by checking the fitting to Rayleigh, Weibull, log-normal, and K-distribution models. Finally, a new modified Kolmogorov-Smirnoff (KS) goodness-of-fit test is proposed; this modified test guarantees good fitting in the distribution tails, which is of fundamental importance for a correct design of CFAR processors     

Effects of polarization and resolution on SAR ATR

Lincoln Laboratory is investigating the detection and classification of stationary ground targets using high resolution, fully polarimetric, synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery. A study is summarized in which data collected by the Lincoln Laboratory 33 GHz SAR were used to perform a comprehensive comparison of automatic target recognition (ATR) performance for several polarization/resolution combinations. The Lincoln Laboratory baseline ATR algorithm suite was used, and was optimized for each polarization/resolution case. Both the HH polarization alone and the optimal combination of HH, HV, and VV were evaluated; the resolutions evaluated were 1 ft/spl times/1 ft and 1 m/spl times/1 m. The data set used for this study contained approximately 74 km/sup 2/ of clutter (56 km/sup 2/ of mixed clutter plus 18 km/sup 2/ of highly cultural clutter) and 136 tactical target images (divided equally between tanks and howitzers).     

Statistical tests for higher order analysis of radar clutter: their application to L-band measured data

We design three statistical tests to ascertain whether radar data comply with the hypotheses of multivariate Gaussianity, spatial homogeneity, and covariance persymmetry, respectively. For the first issue we develop a statistical procedure based on quadratic distributional distances, which exploits the representation of Gaussian vectors in generalized spherical coordinates. As to the spatial homogeneity we propose a technique, based on the Kolmogorov-Smirnov (KS) test, relying on the properties of quadratic forms constructed from Gaussian vectors and Wishart distributed matrices. Finally, in order to analyze the persymmetry property of the disturbance covariance matrix, we design a testing procedure based on the generalized likelihood ratio test (GLRT). We thus apply the new tests to L-band experimentally measured clutter data, collected by the MIT Lincoln Laboratory Phase One radar, at the Katahdin Hill site. The results show that the multivariate Gaussian hypothesis for the considered data file is reasonable. On the contrary the assumption of spatial homogeneity can be done only within small clutter regions which, in general, exhibit also a persymmetric covariance matrix.     

The start of the laboratory: the beginnings of the MITInstrumentation Laboratory

The author takes a look at the very early days of the MIT Instruments Laboratory and its successor, the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory. The discussion ranges over some of the incidents and events as these early instrument developers groped with problems that others had already failed to solve, and for which current solutions were declared adequate     

The story of the MIT Radiation Laboratory

The author relates how the MIT Radiation Laboratory came into existence, how it was run, and the research it did during World War II     

Invention of ground control approach radar at the MIT RadiationLaboratories

The use of the XT-1 radar by Dr. Luis Alvarez in 1941, at the newly formed MIT Radiation Laboratory, to provide aircraft approach guidance, and the subsequent development of a new radar concept for ground control approach, are described. Their use during World War II and subsequent adoption for civil aviation are discussed     

A multiresolution approach to discrimination in SAR imagery

We develop and test a new algorithm for discriminating man-made objects from natural clutter in synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) imagery. This algorithm exploits characteristic variations in speckle pattern as image resolution is varied from course to fine. We model these variations as an autoregression in scale, and then use the autoregressive model to define a multiresolution log-likelihood ratio discriminant. We incorporate this discriminant into the existing Lincoln Laboratory SAR system for automatic target recognition (ATR), and test the augmented system by applying it to millimeter-wave SAR imagery having 0.3 m resolution and representing 56 square kilometers of terrain. At a probability of detection of 0.95, the addition of the multiresolution discriminant reduces the number of natural-clutter false alarms by a factor of six.     

Chemistry of the outer solar system

Data on the composition of the satellites of the outer planets and the composition and structure of planetary atmospheres are briefly reviewed in light of simple models for the origin of the solar system and the planets. Some crucial tests of present theories are suggested.Contribution No. 52 of the MIT Planetary Astronomy Laboratory.This is one of the publications by the Science Advisory Group.     

Range Contamination and Its Effect on Measurements

Increased sensitivity and dynamic range of the instrumental techniques used in conjunction with experiments on ballistic ranges have brought to the fore many problems arising from contamination in the ranges themselves. This is seldom discussed when experimental results are presented but is frequently the controlling limitation on the accuracy of the measurements. The authors discuss contamination due to dirt and debris resultant from gun operation, gaseous impurities, and projectile-borne impurities as they have occurred at the Re-entry Simulating Range of Lincoln Laboratory. The effects of these contaminants on measurements are discussed and illustrated, and measures for controlling them are outlined. Finally, a particular range operation is described from the standpoint of impurity control.     

Optimal polarimetric processing for enhanced target detection

The results of a study of several polarimetric target detection algorithms are summarized. The algorithms were tested using real target-in-clutter data collected by the Lincoln Laboratory 35 GHz synthetic aperture radar (SAR) sensor. Fully polarimetric measurements (HH, HV, VV) are processed into intensity imagery using adaptive and nonadaptive polarimetric whitening filters (PWFs). Then a two-parameter constant false alarm rate (CFAR) detector is run over the imagery to detect the targets. Nonadaptive PWF processed imagery is shown to provide better protection performance than either adaptive PWF processed imagery or single-polarimetric-channel HH imagery. In addition, nonadaptive PWF processed imagery is shown to be visually clearer than adaptive processed imagery     

美国弹道导弹预警探测识别技术发展分析

弹道导弹预警探测识别技术是反导理论和实践需要突破的核心关键技术.美国为了取得反导方面的战略优势地位,长期致力于推动预警探测识别技术的发展,美国预警探测识别系统发展可分为部署初期预警系统、发展新型预警探测识别技术、升级预警探测识别系统并提升目标识别能力等3个重要阶段,目前仍在不断改进完善.其中,林肯实验室在预警探测识别技术方面进行了长期的探索研究,在美国预警探测识别系统建设中发挥了至关重要的作用.此外,美国还利用原有导弹试验靶场,建立太平洋反导试验台,开展了大量反导试验,这也是美军加快生成反导作战能力的“孵化器”和“磨刀石”.通过分析美国预警探测识别系统发展情况,可以得出一些有用的启示.     

80后的思考与行动

我不是一口气读完《大目标:我们与这个世界的政治协商》的,因为,刚读该书给人一种业余写手习作的感觉,里面充满了自以为是的主观和非专业论述。后来看到一些标题想再读,在渐渐适应了作者写作风格之后,觉得该书有一种独特之处。作者们虽然年轻,但经历丰富,古今中外,并能从人类发展的历史中概括出自己的结论;思考虽有偏激,但没有人云亦云;语言论述不够专业,但立场非常正确,对国家充满希望,对人民满腔热忱;没有严谨的结构,但所研究问题紧贴现实,都属于这个世界和时代的基本问题,有较深刻的哲学思维,能引发读者的共鸣和更深思考,等等。因此,可以说《大目标:我们与这个世界的政治协商》不失为一本极具阅读价值的书。后来知道作者是一群80后,更感到震撼和欣慰。当今社会对     

K. Koyama, S. Kitamoto and M. Itoh (eds.), The Hot Universe, IAU Symposium

This volume contains the proceedings of the NATO Advanced Study Institute on Polar Cap Boundary Phenomena held at Longyearbyen, Svalbard, Norway on June 4–13, 1997, which was the third NATO Workshop on magnetospheric boundary phenomena observable at high latitudes. Svalbard has a uniquely interesting location from observational point of view in that the dayside aurora can be observed there in the noon local time sector during the midwinter. The Norwegian groups working at Svalbard were the organisers of this third workshop as well as of the two earlier ones, but only this third one was held at Svalbard. It was attended by 86 space physicists from all over the world. The book contains 36 papers, of which the majority were presented as invited papers at the workshop, a few were contributed papers and the last paper in the volume gives a summary of the content of the workshop. As emphasized in both the Foreword and the Summary chapter of the book, the research field of the polar cap and its boundaries to other magnetospheric regions at high latitudes is one that has seen a fast development in the last ten years. This is to a great deal due to the research work done at Svalbard in combination with satellite measurements and theory development. The review in these proceedings provide also the non-specialist reader with good summaries of where different research questions stand at present. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.