Information-Theoretic Bounds on Target Recognition Performance

This paper derives bounds on the performance of statistical object recognition systems, wherein an image of a target is observed by a remote sensor. Detection and recognition problems are modeled as composite hypothesis testing problems involving nuisance parameters. We develop information–theoretic performance bounds on target recognition based on statistical models for sensors and data, and examine conditions under which these bounds are tight. In particular, we examine the validity of asymptotic approximations to probability of error in such imaging problems. Applications to target recognition based on compressed sensor image data are given. This study provides a systematic and computationally attractive framework for analytically characterizing target recognition performance under complicated, non–Gaussian models, and optimizing system parameters. Keywords— automatic target recognition, imaging sensors, multisensor data fusion, data compression, performance metrics.