2010 International Conference on Measuring Technology and Mechatronics Automation

Application of Butterworth Filter in Display of Radar Target Track

Wu Xiao-chao, Wang Guo-liang, Fang Li-xin, Yan Liao-liao

˄Electronic Equipment Test Centre of China, Luoyang Henan 471003, China)
wuxiaochao@126.com

Abstract—The noise in the radar data results in the
flutter of the flight target in display screen, which may
disturb observer. A rounding method for radar target
track using Butterworth filter is proposed in this paper.
With the spectrum characteristics of radar target track
being analyzed, the filter’s parameters can be designed
and figured out. Therefore, after the noise in radar
signal is magnified by a transformation algorithm, it
can be smoothed online. The results of MATLAB
illustration show that the method has a reliable
denoising performance.
the frequency varying of radar target track is
smoother. For instance, the general frequency of an
airplane’s turning is less than 1 Hz, but the noise
frequency is its ten times at least. Thereby, ``the
digital filter, namely Butterworth filter, is available to
acquire the great effect for radar target track signal
filtering by the spectrum analyzed. The filter’s
amplitude frequency response function is[4]:
2
H ( jω ) = A(ω 2 ) =
1 (1)
ω 2N
1+ ( )
ωc

where ωc is the cut-off frequency of low band filter,

Keywords-Butterworth filter; radar target track;
and N is the order of the filter. This filter’s
denoising
characteristics are: the amplitude frequency
characteristic in the low band domain is most flat,
I. INTRODUCTION
and, along with the frequency increasing, is
A mass of noise signal is always involved in the
monotone decreasing. If the order N is higher, the
radar target track data for the effects of radar clutter,
characteristic is more close to rectangle, and the
cloud, rain, and radar cross-section (RCS) and so on.
transition band is narrower. Its transfer function is no
The noise disturbs the target identification in the
zero, and the poles distribute on the circle whose
display screen, which causes the illusion the target is
fluttering. Many filter techniques to resolve this radius is s = ωc , so the function is steady. The filter
problem, such as Kalman filtering, least squares
is the simplest one.
procedure, α − β filtering, are state estimation
Eq. 1 shows the key of the filter to choice the
methods based on time series, and must consider the
correct ωc and N . Above all, according to the track
target’s past state, locus model, and interrelated prior
signal’s spectrum characteristics choices the pass
knowledge. But, for the time-varying system, all that
information is difficult to acquire, or is inaccuracy band edge frequency ω p (namely 0 ~ ω p is pass
[1][2][3], leading to a worse result for the data of
band), the stop band edge frequency ωs , the pass
detail section. Thereby, with Butterworth filter, a
method filtering radar target track based on band attenuation R p (namely the number of DB of
frequency-domain model is proposed in this paper. In
the most attenuation in the pass band), and the stop
the end, the MATLAB simulation shows the
band attenuation Rs ( namely the number of DB the
method’s availability.
filter amplitude dropping from the pass band to the
II. BUTTERWORTH FILTER AND ITS DESIGN stop band. The equation to resolve N and ωc as
follows:
Compared with the frequency of its noise signal,

978-0-7695-3962-1/10 $26.00 © 2010 IEEE 605

DOI 10.1109/ICMTMA.2010.297
 ­ 10 Rs /10 − 1 ª e(t ) º
« e(t − 1) »
° lg( )
R /10
10 p − 1 e '(t ) = [b(1) b(2) " b( N + 1)] ⋅ « »−
°N = « # »
° « » ˄6˅
® lg(ωs / ω p ) (2) ¬e(t − N ) ¼
°
°ω = ωs ª e '(t − 1) º
« e '(t − 2) »
°¯ c (10Rs /10 − 1)1/ 2 N [a (1) a (2) " a ( N ) « »
« # »
« »
¬ e '( t − N ) ¼
Finally, make use of Eq. (3) to assign the poles:
2k + N − 1 where, respectively, a and b are the numerator
pk = exp( j π ), k = 1, 2," , N (3)
2N and the denominator of the filter transfer function
So we can get the filter’s transfer function on the which have been z-transformed.
complex plane: And then convert the result back to the original
­ N /2 form:
°G ( p) = ∏ Gk ( p )䯸 N is a even number.
° k =1 (4) x '(t ) = (e '(t ) + 1) x(1) ˄7 ˅
®
° 1 N /2 x '(t ) is the last filtering result.
°G ( p) = p䯷1 ∏ Gk ( p ), N is a odd number.
¯ k =1
IV. EXAMPLE AND SIMULATION
1
where Gk ( p) = =
( p − pk )( p − pN +1− k ) Take one radar data as an example to filter out the

1 noise from geocentric coordinates x and z , and

. Thereby, the contrast it with the actual value. As show in Fig.1,
2k + N − 1
p 2 − 2 p cos( π ) +1
2N the sampling frequency of radar data is 1Hz. After
transfer function is second-order system composed of spectrum analysis, ωp sets 0.1 (Here, ωp
conjugate poles. To process the discrete signal, Z-
transform is necessary for the transfer function. corresponds to pi radians/sample, and the latter is

III. FILTERING METHOD FOR RADAR TARGET
TRACK
Compared with the magnitude of radar data in
space-time plane, the power of noise or error is very
weak. For example, generally, the order of magnitude
6
of radar data is 10 meter in geocentric coordinate
system, but the error is only several hundreds meter
at most. So the data of error must be converted to
reduce the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). As being
analyzed in frequency-domain, the conversion does
not deteriorate the result to acquire the information of
error’s frequency. The conversion uses the first point
in the data as a reference to realize to extract the
noise information. As shown in the Eq. (5):
e(t ) = x(t ) / x(1) − 1
Then e(t ) is the one to be filtered, and the
formula is:
same), ωs sets 0.6, R p and Rs are 3dB and 60dB [5].
Then achieve the parameters: N =4, ωc ˙0.1, a =[-
2.7509 2.9758 -1.4756 0.2811] and b =[0.0019
0.0076 0.0114 0.0076 0.019]. As shown in Fig.1,
after filtering, the track gets smooth. The chart a) and
b) in Fig.1 show the noise or error in the case of pre-
filtering and filtered. There is a bounce in chart f ) for
the target’s quick turning to induce a big phase-
shifting error, but this does not affect observing.
Thus it can be seen that Butterworth filter is
available for radar target track smoothing, if we
choose right parameter and transformed the track
data. The simulation shows its good performance.
˄5˅ V. CONCLUSION
In this research, Butterworth filter has been
developed to smooth radar target track and to observe
the flight more factually in control center. This
method has the advantages as follows: 1) Only think
the spectrum distribution of signal, and can neglect

606
 Figure 1. Result of data filtered (1Hz)

[5] Liu Bo, Wen Zhong, Zeng Ya. “MATLAB signal

processing”. Publish house of electronics industry, Beijing,
the effect of the amplitude variation of disturbing 2006

signal; 2) Be easy to choose the filter’s parameter

and realize; 3) Can deal with the data online and
satisfy real-time process; 4) Get good performance; 5)
Can express target track varying practically. So this
method has certain application value.

REFERENCE
[1] He You, Xiu Jianjuan, Zhang Jinwei. “Radar data processing
with application”. Publish house of electronics industry,
Beijing, 2006
[2] ”Electronic warfare receiving systems”. New York [USA].
Artech House,1993
[3] Singer R A, Sea R G, Housewright K B. “Derivation and
evaluation of improved tracking filters for use in dense
multi-target environment”. IEEE Trans. Information Theory.
1974, 20(7):423-432
[4] Hu Guangshu. “Digital signal processing-theory, arithmetic
and realization”. Publish house of Qinhua university, Beijing
2003

607