Automatic target detection and recognition approaches for unattended electro-optical sensors

Automatic target detection and recognition (ATD/R) remains a challenging problem for unmanned and unattended systems. Promising solutions using Electro-Optical sensors such as LADARs, FLIRs, and TVs are evolving. The key issues are not only the performance of the individual sensors, but also the mutual calibration of the sensors and their collective behavior. This paper presents an overview of the challenges encountered in two separate ATD/R scenarios, and the methods that have been proposed for addressing them. Specifically, advanced techniques that exploit multiple views, collaborative sensor behavior and new sensing paradigms are reviewed and the concepts are illustrated by means of several examples.