Target Discrimination with Neural Networks

Abstract

The feasibility of distinguishing multiple type components of exo-atmospheric targets is demonstrated by applying the Time Delay Neural Network (TDNN) and the Adaptive Time-Delay Neural Network (ATNN). Exo-atmospheric targets are especially difficult to distinguish using currently available techniques because all target parts follow the same spatial trajectory. Thus classification must be based on light sensors that record signal over time. Results have demonstrated that the trained neural networks were able to successfully identify warheads from other missile parts on a variety of simulated scenarios, including differing angles and tumbling. The network with adaptive time delays (the ATNN) performs highly complex mapping on a limited set of training data and achieves better generalization to overall trends of situations compared to the TDNN, which includes time delays but adapts only its weights. The ATNN was trained on additive noisy data and it is shown that the ATNN possesses robustness to environment variations.