Leveraging Visual Language Model and Generative Diffusion Model for Zero-Shot SAR Target Recognition

Simulated data play an important role in SAR target recognition, particularly under zero-shot learning (ZSL) conditions caused by the lack of training samples. The traditional SAR simulation method is based on manually constructing target 3D models for electromagnetic simulation, which is costly and limited by the target’s prior knowledge base. Also, the unavoidable discrepancy between simulated SAR and measured SAR makes the traditional simulation method more limited for target recognition. This paper proposes an innovative SAR simulation method based on a visual language model and generative diffusion model by extracting target semantic information from optical remote sensing images and transforming it into a 3D model for SAR simulation to address the challenge of SAR target recognition under ZSL conditions. Additionally, to reduce the domain shift between the simulated domain and the measured domain, we propose a domain adaptation method based on dynamic weight domain loss and classification loss. The effectiveness of semantic information-based 3D models has been validated on the MSTAR dataset and the feasibility of the proposed framework has been validated on the self-built civilian vehicle dataset. The experimental results demonstrate that the first proposed SAR simulation method based on a visual language model and generative diffusion model can effectively improve target recognition performance under ZSL conditions.