Physical Optics Corporation — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: ABSTRACT: To address the Air Force need to mitigate wind turbine clutter interference for

Description

ABSTRACT: To address the Air Force need to mitigate wind turbine clutter interference for existing terminal air traffic control (ATC) radar systems, Physical Optics Corporation (POC) proposes to develop a new Machine Intelligent Nonstationary Clutter Excision (MINCE) system. It is based on adaptive processing and empirically verified mathematical modeling of nonstationary clutter. The solution, based on innovations in clutter modeling and statistical processing, will enable the system to mitigate nonstationary clutter from wind farms with a minimum of modifications. Hence, this system offers improved target detection with low probability of false alarms, improved target tracking performance, and reduced false targets, which directly address the Air Force requirements to enhance surveillance in the national airspace. In Phase I, we will demonstrate the feasibility of MINCE by statistical and simulation analysis of wind turbine clutter and develop MINCE technology to mitigate wind turbines"nonstationary clutter for existing ATC radar. We will improve the system based on objective metrics such as target detection, tracking, and constant false alarm rate. In Phase II, we plan to further refine the system and propose verification and validation methodologies via integration into a candidate ATC radar system to further optimize MINCE for real-world operational utility. BENEFIT: The MINCE system will be the first of a new generation of clutter mitigation systems that can be incorporated into several public and commercial radar systems ranging from the FAA"s ATC systems to terminal Doppler weather radar (TDWR) and weather surveillance radar (e.g., WSR-88D NEXRAD). The indirect benefit of the MINCE system is relaxing the stringent constraint on the wind turbine installations in the vicinity of"wind-rich"airfields, as it can declutter the nonstationary clutter signatures of wind farms. The MINCE also has applications in marine radar which are detrimentally affected by sea clutter and weather-related clutter due to dust, rain, snow, etc.