Point Cloud Clustering Algorithm of Millimeter-Wave Radar in Complex Environments
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1School of Information Engineering, Zhejiang Ocean University, Zhoushan 316022, China;2School of Marine Engineering Equipment, Zhejiang Ocean University, Zhoushan 316022, China

Clc Number:

TN957.52

Fund Project:

National Natural Science Foundation of China 62571053Discipline Construction Program of Zhejiang Province 1106406022102National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.62571053); Discipline Construction Program of Zhejiang Province (No.1106406022102).

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    Abstract:

    Conventional density-based spatial clustering of applications with noise (DBSCAN) algorithms struggle in complex dynamic traffic due to non-uniform density of millimeter-wave radar point clouds, causing ambiguous boundaries, poor separability, and noise misclassification. This paper proposes a two-stage enhanced DBSCAN framework integrating adaptive polar grid partitioning with velocity-based post-processing. In stage one, a dynamic elliptical neighborhood search adapts its range according to radial distance, ensuring accurate initial spatial clustering under density variations. Stage two exploits Doppler radial velocity statistics: Outliers are removed via a velocity-consistency criterion, misclassified valid points are reassigned through a spatial-velocity dual-similarity framework, and overlapping clusters are split based on velocity dispersion and motion direction. Experimental results demonstrate significant improvements over traditional DBSCAN. In vehicle-overlapping scenarios, accuracy rises from 79.59% to 88.1%; in pedestrian-vehicle overlaps, from 86.55% to 97.24%. Evaluation metrics show the silhouette coefficient improves by 14.4%, the Calinski-Harabasz index by 381.3%, and the Davies-Bouldin index decreases by 41.5%, indicating clearer boundaries and better cluster stability. The proposed method effectively resolves overlaps and suppresses noise, offering a reliable preprocessing solution for millimeter-wave radar in dynamic environments.Highlights:1.Adaptive polar-grid DBSCAN with dynamic elliptical neighborhoods compensates for radial-distance-dependent density distortion, ensuring robust initial clustering under non-uniform point-cloud distribution.2.Velocity-consistency filtering and spatial-velocity dual-similarity reassignment accurately remove outliers and recover misclassified valid points, preserving target integrity.3.Overcome the inherent limitation of spatial-only DBSCAN by leveraging velocity dispersion and directional differences to split overlapping clusters, enabling accurate separation of adjacent targets with distinct motions.

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ZHANG Haoyu, XUE Jingyi, QIAO Qian. Point Cloud Clustering Algorithm of Millimeter-Wave Radar in Complex Environments[J]. Journal of Data Acquisition and Processing,2026,41(5):1509-1521.

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History
  • Received:June 12,2025
  • Revised:August 15,2025
  • Adopted:
  • Online: October 14,2026
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