Late-Time Estimation for Resonance-Based Radar Target Identification

This communication presents a novel method for determining the commencement of the late-time resonant response of a radar target, without a priori knowledge of the target geometry or orientation. Insights from Kronecker's theorem for Hankel matrices are used to determine the offset for the processing window for extraction of the true complex natural resonances by exploiting characteristic changes in the Hankel matrix, including the matrix rank and the distribution of eigenvalues. Results are presented for both simulated and measured targets.