Enhanced Intruder Detection Using mmWave Radar: A Spatiotemporal Clustering Approach for Robust Human Detection

Abstract

Intruder detection using mmWave radar presents significant challenges due to the variability in the number of detections across spatial and temporal domains. This variability complicates the clustering process, particularly when detections from different body parts, such as the head and gait, are spatially distant, leading to the potential fragmentation of clusters. To address these challenges, we propose an enhanced clustering methodology that integrates both spatial and temporal information. The approach modifies the traditional DBSCAN algorithm by introducing a delayed window accumulation technique. This technique allows the radar system to accumulate detections over a specified duration, ensuring that an adequate number of detections are gathered before initiating clustering. Additionally, our method considers the physical dimensions of the human body to merge clusters that may be incorrectly separated due to the spatial distribution of detections. We further refine this approach by implementing a modified agglomerative clustering algorithm that leverages both spatial and temporal data to enhance cluster stability. The proposed methods are evaluated against the standard DBSCAN algorithm, demonstrating superior performance in accurately identifying human intruders, even under challenging detection scenarios. Our findings suggest that incorporating a delayed window accumulation strategy and considering spatiotemporal data are critical for robust intruder detection using mmWave radar. © 2024 IEEE.