Explore the vast range of titles available.

The capability of sensors to identify individuals in a specific scenario is a topic of high relevance for sensitive sectors such as public security. A traditional approach involves cameras; however, camera-based surveillance systems lack discretion and have high computational and storing requirements in order to perform human identification. Moreover, they are strongly influenced by external factors (e.g., light and weather). This paper proposes an approach based on a temporal convolutional deep neural networks classifier applied to radar micro-Doppler signatures in order to identify individuals. Both sensor and processing requirements ensure a low size weight and power profile, enabling large scale deployment of discrete human identification systems. The proposed approach is assessed on real data concerning 106 individuals. The results show good accuracy of the classifier (the best obtained accuracy is 0.89 with an F1-score of 0.885) and improved performance when compared to other standard approaches.

In bearings-only target tracking, the pseudo-linear Kalman filter (PLKF) attracts much attention because of its stability and its low computational burden. However, the PLKF’s measurement vector and the pseudo-linear noise are correlated, which makes it suffer from bias problems. Although the bias-compensated PLKF (BC–PLKF) and the instrumental variable-based PLKF (IV–PLKF) can eliminate the bias, they only work well when the target behaves with non-manoeuvring movement. To extend the PLKF to the manoeuvring target tracking scenario, an unbiased PLKF (UB–PLKF) algorithm, which splits the noise away from the measurement vector directly, is proposed. Based on the results of the UB–PLKF, we also propose its velocity-constrained version (VC–PLKF) to further improve the performance. Simulations show that the UB–PLKF and VC–PLKF outperform the BC–PLKF and IV–PLKF both in non-manoeuvring and manoeuvring scenarios.

Large infrastructures need continuous maintenance because of materials degradation due to atmospheric agents and their persistent use. This problem makes it imperative to carry out persistent monitoring of infrastructure health conditions in order to guarantee maximum safety at all times. The main issue of early warning infrastructure fault detection is that expensive in-situ distributed monitoring sensor networks have to be installed. On the contrary, the use of satellite data has made it possible to use immediate and low-cost techniques in recent years. In this regard, the potential of spaceborne Synthetic Aperture Radar for the monitoring of critical infrastructures is demonstrated in geographically extended areas, even in the presence of clouds, and in really tough weather. A complete procedure for damage early-warning detection is designed, by using micro-motion (m-m) estimation of critical sites, based on modal proprieties analysis. Particularly, m-m is processed to extract modal features such as natural frequencies and mode shapes generated by vibrations of large infrastructures. Several study cases are here considered and the “Morandi” Bridge (Polcevera Viaduct) in Genoa (Italy) is analyzed in depth highlighting abnormal vibration modes during the period before the bridge collapsed.

In this paper, we propose a novel strategy to estimate the micro-motion (m-m) of ships from synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images. To this end, observe that the problem of motion and m-m detection of targets is usually solved using synthetic aperture radar (SAR) along-track interferometry through two radars spatially separated by a baseline along the azimuth direction. The approach proposed in this paper for m-m estimation of ships, occupying thousands of pixels, processes the information generated during the coregistration of several re-synthesized time-domain and not overlapped Doppler sub-apertures. Specifically, the SAR products are generated by splitting the raw data according to a temporally small baseline using one single wide-band staring spotlight (ST) SAR image. The predominant vibrational modes of different ships are then estimated. The performance analysis is conducted on one ST SAR image recorded by COSMO-SkyMed satellite system. Finally, the newly proposed approach paves the way for application to the surveillance of land-based industry activities.

In this paper we consider the tracking problem of a moving target competing against noise and clutter in a surveillance radar scenario. For a single array-antenna multiple-target tracking system and according to the Track-Before-Detect paradigm, we present a novel approach based on a three-stage processing chain that involves the Sparse Learning via Iterative Minimization algorithm, the k-means clustering method and the ad hoc detector by exploiting the sparse nature of the operating scenario. Under the latter assumption, the detection strategy declares the presence of targets subsequently to the retrieval of their corresponding tracks performed by jointly processing the received echoes of multiple consecutive radar scans. Simulation results show that the proposed approach is able to provide good tracking and detection capabilities for different multiple target trajectories with low Signal-to-Interference-plus-Noise ratio and results in providing advantages when compared to a number of other reference Track-Before-Detect strategies based on sparse data processing techniques.

The lack of availability of historical and reliable river water level information is an issue that can be overcome through the exploitation of modern satellite remote sensing systems. This research has the objective of contributing in solving the information-gap problem of river flow monitoring through a synthetic aperture radar (SAR) signal processing technique that has the capability to perform water flow elevation estimation. This paper proposes the application of a new method for the design of a robust procedure to track over the time double-bounce reflections from bridges crossing rivers to measure the gap space existing between the river surface and bridges. Specifically, the difference in position between the single and double bounce is suitably measured over the time. Simulated and satellite temporal series of SAR data from COSMO-SkyMed data are compared to the ground measurements recorded for three gauges sites over the Po and Tiber Rivers, Italy. The obtained performance indices confirm the effectiveness of the method in the estimation of water level also in narrow or ungauged rivers.

In this paper, we focus on the design of adaptive receivers for nonhomogeneous scenarios. More precisely, at the design stage we assume a mismatch between the covariance matrix of the noise in the cell under test and that of secondary data. Under the above assumption, we show that the Wald test is the adaptive matched filter, while the Rao test coincides with the receiver obtained by using the Rao test design criterion in homogeneous environment, hence providing a theoretical explanation of the enhanced selectivity of this receiver.

In this study, the authors deal with the problem of adaptive detection of point-like targets in Gaussian disturbance with unknown but persymmetric structured covariance matrix induced by the space and/or time symmetry of the sensing system. In this framework, they devise and assess two selective receivers exploiting the Rao test and the generalised likelihood ratio test design criteria. The performance assessment, conducted by Monte Carlo simulation, has shown that the proposed receivers can significantly outperform their unstructured counterparts and guarantee enhanced rejection performance of unwanted signals with respect to their natural competitors.

The study explored the presence of different patterns of change in a sample of patients who received cognitive therapy for depression in group and individual sequential formats. Our hypothesis was that some patients would respond better to group than to individual therapy, and that for others the opposite trend would be found. Objective: To identify differential patterns of response, to describe the differences in the patients’ characteristics in each pattern, and to predict pattern membership from these characteristics. Also, we wanted to gauge the relationship between each pattern and treatment outcome at termination and follow-up. Method: 108 adults who met criteria for major depressive disorder and/or dysthymia completed the treatments included in a randomized controlled trial combining group and individual therapy. They were assessed with the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis I Disorders, the Beck Depression Inventory-II, the Clinical Outcome in Routine Evaluation, the Global Assessment of Functioning, and the Repertory Grid Technique. Growth mixture modeling was used to identify the patterns of change in each treatment phase. Mixed linear models and repeated measures analysis of variance were performed to compare patients’ characteristics in each pattern. Multinomial logistic regression was used to compute predictive models for the patterns from patients’ baseline characteristics. Finally, hierarchical linear regression was used to establish the power of each pattern to predict treatment outcome at termination and at 3-month and 1-year follow-up. Results: A 3-class solution was obtained: group therapy improvers, individual therapy improvers and non-improvers. Patients in each pattern differed in terms of initial symptom severity, psychological distress, functioning, self-ideal discrepancy, perception of social isolation, and conflictual construction of the self. Some of these variables also worked as predictors for pattern membership. More than half of the explained variance of the outcome at termination and at 1-year follow-up was accounted for by initial depression scores and pattern of change. Conclusions: The results supported the hypothesis of differential patterns of response to cognitive therapy. Profiles of patients who obtained better results in group or individual therapy for depression could be identified as well.

This paper addresses the problem of detecting multiple point-like targets in the presence of steering vector mismatches and Gaussian disturbance with unknown covariance matrix. To this end, we first model the actual useful signal as a vector belonging to a proper cone whose axis coincides with the whitened direction of the nominal array response. Then we develop two robust adaptive detectors resorting to the two-step GLRT-based design procedure without assignment of a distinct set of secondary data. The performance assessment has been conducted by Monte Carlo simulation, also in comparison to previously proposed detectors, and confirms the effectiveness of the newly proposed ones. In the last part of the work, in order to restore the detection performance of the newly proposed detectors in the presence of a large number of range cells contaminated by useful signals, we consider two adaptive detectors which resort to the structure information of the disturbance covariance matrix, and show that the a-priori information on the covariance structure can lead to a noticeable performance improvement.