In recent years,the emergence of anomalous aerial situations induced by air balloons has posed significant threats to national security,airspace security,and civil aviation safety. Air balloons,characterized by their composition of medium materials and smooth surface,elude conventional radar detection. To address the inadequacy of current methods in detecting air balloons at airports and similar facilities,this study proposes a novel detection approach based on polarimetric fusion utilizing the coherent pulse compression ratio. The coherent pulse compression ratio of air balloon targets is leveraged to discern and filter out ground clutter. Then,polarization fusion processing is conducted to reduce false alarms,and further refinement is made using morphological image analysis to eliminate spurious targets. Results of processing real-world air balloon data collected by dual-polarization weather radar shows that this method demonstrates effective detection and reduced background clutter and RF interference false alarms. The proposed approach,considering the scattering characteristics of air balloons,exhibits a performance enhancement of 3. 2 dB over conventional methods. Notably,it equips existing polarimetric weather radar systems with air balloon detection and early warning capabilities without compromising their current operational functionalities. With its computational efficiency and practical implementation feasibility,this method holds promise for wide-spread integration into existing polarimetric weather radar systems. © 2024 Chinese Society of Astronautics. All rights reserved.
