Maritime Surveillance Using Multiple High-Frequency Surface-Wave Radars

TLDR

High‑frequency surface‑wave radars are attractive for long‑range maritime surveillance due to over‑the‑horizon coverage and continuous operation, but they suffer from poor resolution, strong nonlinearity, and clutter. The study applies radar detection, multitarget tracking, and data‑fusion techniques to experimental HF‑radar data collected on the Ligurian coast between May and December 2009. The authors evaluate performance using metrics such as time on target, false‑alarm rate, track fragmentation, and accuracy while applying detection, tracking, and data‑fusion methods to the experimental data. Statistical analysis of one month of data shows that the combined tracking and data‑fusion procedures reduce the detector’s false‑alarm rate by an order of magnitude and improve time‑on‑target and accuracy compared to the baseline detection algorithm.

Abstract

In the last decades, great interest has been directed toward low-power high-frequency (HF) surface-wave radars as long-range early warning tools in maritime-situational-awareness applications. These sensors, developed for ocean remote sensing, provide an additional source of information for ship detection and tracking, by virtue of their over-the-horizon coverage capability and continuous-time mode of operation. Unfortunately, they exhibit many shortcomings that need to be taken into account, such as poor range and azimuth resolution, high nonlinearity, and significant presence of clutter. In this paper, radar detection, multitarget tracking, and data fusion (DF) techniques are applied to experimental data collected during an HF-radar experiment, which took place between May and December 2009 on the Ligurian coast of the Mediterranean Sea. The system performance is defined in terms of time on target (ToT), false alarm rate (FAR), track fragmentation, and accuracy. A full statistical characterization is provided using one month of data. The effectiveness of the tracking and DF procedures is shown in comparison to the radar detection algorithm. In particular, the detector's FAR is reduced by one order of magnitude. Improvements, using the DF of the two radars, are also reported in terms of ToT as well as accuracy.