Efficient Velocity Filter Implementations for Dim Target Detection

Efficient frequency domain and recursive spatiotemporal (RST) velocity filter implementations are presented. In the frequency domain, the sliding discrete Fourier transform (SDFT) is exploited to yield a track-before-detect (TBD) algorithm with a complexity that is independent of the filter integration time. The performance of the filters is examined using simulation and real sensor data. When processing the real data, the SDFT implementation is approximately 3 times faster than the equivalent fast Fourier transform (FFT) implementation and 16 times faster than the corresponding spatiotemporal (ST) implementation. The RST filter outperformed all other implementations when simulated data were used.