Matched Filter Processing for Asteroid Detection

Matched filter (MF) processing has been shown to provide significant performance gains when processing stellar imagery used for asteroid detection, recovery, and tracking. This includes extending detection ranges to fainter magnitudes at the noise limit of the imagery and operating in dense cluttered star fields as encountered at low Galactic latitudes. The MF software has been shown to detect 40% more asteroids in high-quality Spacewatch imagery relative to the currently implemented approaches, which are based on moving target indicator (MTI) algorithms. In addition, MF detections were made in dense star fields and in situations in which the asteroid was collocated with a star in an image frame, cases in which the MTI algorithms failed. Thus, using legacy sensors and optics, improved detection sensitivity is achievable by simply upgrading the image-processing stream. This in turn permits surveys of the near-Earth asteroid (NEA) population farther from opposition, for smaller sizes, and in directions previously inaccessible to current NEA search programs. A software package has been developed and made available on the NASA data services Web site that can be used for asteroid detection and recovery operations utilizing the enhanced performance capabilities of MF processing.