Out-of-Distribution Radar Detection with Complex VAEs: Theory, Whitening, and ANMF Fusion

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Rouzoumka, Yadang Alexis, Pinsolle, Jean, Terreaux, Eugénie, Morisseau, Christèle, Ovarlez, Jean-Philippe, Ren, Chengfang
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866910001118838784
author Rouzoumka, Yadang Alexis
Pinsolle, Jean
Terreaux, Eugénie
Morisseau, Christèle
Ovarlez, Jean-Philippe
Ren, Chengfang
author_facet Rouzoumka, Yadang Alexis
Pinsolle, Jean
Terreaux, Eugénie
Morisseau, Christèle
Ovarlez, Jean-Philippe
Ren, Chengfang
contents We investigate the detection of weak complex-valued signals immersed in non-Gaussian, range-varying interference, with emphasis on maritime radar scenarios. The proposed methodology exploits a Complex-valued Variational AutoEncoder (CVAE) trained exclusively on clutter-plus-noise to perform Out-Of-Distribution detection. By operating directly on in-phase / quadrature samples, the CVAE preserves phase and Doppler structure and is assessed in two configurations: (i) using unprocessed range profiles and (ii) after local whitening, where per-range covariance estimates are obtained from neighboring profiles. Using extensive simulations together with real sea-clutter data from the CSIR maritime dataset, we benchmark performance against classical and adaptive detectors (MF, NMF, AMF-SCM, ANMF-SCM, ANMF-Tyler). In both configurations, the CVAE yields a higher detection probability Pd at matched false-alarm rate Pfa, with the most notable improvements observed under whitening. We further integrate the CVAE with the ANMF through a weighted log-p fusion rule at the decision level, attaining enhanced robustness in strongly non-Gaussian clutter and enabling empirically calibrated Pfa control under H0. Overall, the results demonstrate that statistical normalization combined with complex-valued generative modeling substantively improves detection in realistic sea-clutter conditions, and that the fused CVAE-ANMF scheme constitutes a competitive alternative to established model-based detectors.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2601_18677
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Out-of-Distribution Radar Detection with Complex VAEs: Theory, Whitening, and ANMF Fusion
Rouzoumka, Yadang Alexis
Pinsolle, Jean
Terreaux, Eugénie
Morisseau, Christèle
Ovarlez, Jean-Philippe
Ren, Chengfang
Machine Learning
We investigate the detection of weak complex-valued signals immersed in non-Gaussian, range-varying interference, with emphasis on maritime radar scenarios. The proposed methodology exploits a Complex-valued Variational AutoEncoder (CVAE) trained exclusively on clutter-plus-noise to perform Out-Of-Distribution detection. By operating directly on in-phase / quadrature samples, the CVAE preserves phase and Doppler structure and is assessed in two configurations: (i) using unprocessed range profiles and (ii) after local whitening, where per-range covariance estimates are obtained from neighboring profiles. Using extensive simulations together with real sea-clutter data from the CSIR maritime dataset, we benchmark performance against classical and adaptive detectors (MF, NMF, AMF-SCM, ANMF-SCM, ANMF-Tyler). In both configurations, the CVAE yields a higher detection probability Pd at matched false-alarm rate Pfa, with the most notable improvements observed under whitening. We further integrate the CVAE with the ANMF through a weighted log-p fusion rule at the decision level, attaining enhanced robustness in strongly non-Gaussian clutter and enabling empirically calibrated Pfa control under H0. Overall, the results demonstrate that statistical normalization combined with complex-valued generative modeling substantively improves detection in realistic sea-clutter conditions, and that the fused CVAE-ANMF scheme constitutes a competitive alternative to established model-based detectors.
title Out-of-Distribution Radar Detection with Complex VAEs: Theory, Whitening, and ANMF Fusion
topic Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.18677