An Entropy-based Scheme for Automatic Target Recognition

Often the performance of a classification system is reported in terms of classification accuracy. In an environment with objects unknown to the classification system, classification accuracy may provide unrealistic expectations. In this paper we contrast classification and label accuracy in a challenging classification environment. A statistical-based method is used to identify records not represented in the template library used by the classifier and three different information theory-based methods are used to identify label records likely to be misidentified. These methods are applied to an automatic target recognition (ATR) problem, using features drawn from high-range resolution profiles generated from synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data. An optimization framework is used to select the optimal classification system choices based on the measurement of evaluation. The choices selected by the framework when classification or label accuracy is the optimization focus are contrasted.