NEAR: Neural Electromagnetic Array Response

Yinyan Bu, Jiajie Yu, Kai Zheng, Xinyu Zhang, Piya Pal
Proceedings of the 42nd International Conference on Machine Learning, PMLR 267:5749-5774, 2025.

Abstract

We address the challenge of achieving angular super-resolution in multi-antenna radar systems that are widely used for localization, navigation, and automotive perception. A multi-antenna radar achieves very high resolution by computationally creating a large virtual sensing system using very few physical antennas. However, practical constraints imposed by hardware, noise, and a limited number of antennas can impede its performance. Conventional supervised learning models that rely on extensive pre-training with large datasets, often exhibit poor generalization in unseen environments. To overcome these limitations, we propose NEAR, an untrained implicit neural representation (INR) framework that predicts radar responses at unseen locations from sparse measurements, by leveraging latent harmonic structures inherent in radar wave propagation. We establish new theoretical results linking antenna array response to expressive power of INR architectures, and develop a novel physics-informed and latent geometry-aware regularizer. Our approach integrates classical signal representation with modern implicit neural learning, enabling high-resolution radar sensing that is both interpretable and generalizable. Extensive simulations and real-world experiments using radar platforms demonstrate NEAR’s effectiveness and its ability to adapt to unseen environments.

Cite this Paper


BibTeX
@InProceedings{pmlr-v267-bu25c, title = {{NEAR}: Neural Electromagnetic Array Response}, author = {Bu, Yinyan and Yu, Jiajie and Zheng, Kai and Zhang, Xinyu and Pal, Piya}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 42nd International Conference on Machine Learning}, pages = {5749--5774}, year = {2025}, editor = {Singh, Aarti and Fazel, Maryam and Hsu, Daniel and Lacoste-Julien, Simon and Berkenkamp, Felix and Maharaj, Tegan and Wagstaff, Kiri and Zhu, Jerry}, volume = {267}, series = {Proceedings of Machine Learning Research}, month = {13--19 Jul}, publisher = {PMLR}, pdf = {https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mlresearch/v267/main/assets/bu25c/bu25c.pdf}, url = {https://proceedings.mlr.press/v267/bu25c.html}, abstract = {We address the challenge of achieving angular super-resolution in multi-antenna radar systems that are widely used for localization, navigation, and automotive perception. A multi-antenna radar achieves very high resolution by computationally creating a large virtual sensing system using very few physical antennas. However, practical constraints imposed by hardware, noise, and a limited number of antennas can impede its performance. Conventional supervised learning models that rely on extensive pre-training with large datasets, often exhibit poor generalization in unseen environments. To overcome these limitations, we propose NEAR, an untrained implicit neural representation (INR) framework that predicts radar responses at unseen locations from sparse measurements, by leveraging latent harmonic structures inherent in radar wave propagation. We establish new theoretical results linking antenna array response to expressive power of INR architectures, and develop a novel physics-informed and latent geometry-aware regularizer. Our approach integrates classical signal representation with modern implicit neural learning, enabling high-resolution radar sensing that is both interpretable and generalizable. Extensive simulations and real-world experiments using radar platforms demonstrate NEAR’s effectiveness and its ability to adapt to unseen environments.} }
Endnote
%0 Conference Paper %T NEAR: Neural Electromagnetic Array Response %A Yinyan Bu %A Jiajie Yu %A Kai Zheng %A Xinyu Zhang %A Piya Pal %B Proceedings of the 42nd International Conference on Machine Learning %C Proceedings of Machine Learning Research %D 2025 %E Aarti Singh %E Maryam Fazel %E Daniel Hsu %E Simon Lacoste-Julien %E Felix Berkenkamp %E Tegan Maharaj %E Kiri Wagstaff %E Jerry Zhu %F pmlr-v267-bu25c %I PMLR %P 5749--5774 %U https://proceedings.mlr.press/v267/bu25c.html %V 267 %X We address the challenge of achieving angular super-resolution in multi-antenna radar systems that are widely used for localization, navigation, and automotive perception. A multi-antenna radar achieves very high resolution by computationally creating a large virtual sensing system using very few physical antennas. However, practical constraints imposed by hardware, noise, and a limited number of antennas can impede its performance. Conventional supervised learning models that rely on extensive pre-training with large datasets, often exhibit poor generalization in unseen environments. To overcome these limitations, we propose NEAR, an untrained implicit neural representation (INR) framework that predicts radar responses at unseen locations from sparse measurements, by leveraging latent harmonic structures inherent in radar wave propagation. We establish new theoretical results linking antenna array response to expressive power of INR architectures, and develop a novel physics-informed and latent geometry-aware regularizer. Our approach integrates classical signal representation with modern implicit neural learning, enabling high-resolution radar sensing that is both interpretable and generalizable. Extensive simulations and real-world experiments using radar platforms demonstrate NEAR’s effectiveness and its ability to adapt to unseen environments.
APA
Bu, Y., Yu, J., Zheng, K., Zhang, X. & Pal, P.. (2025). NEAR: Neural Electromagnetic Array Response. Proceedings of the 42nd International Conference on Machine Learning, in Proceedings of Machine Learning Research 267:5749-5774 Available from https://proceedings.mlr.press/v267/bu25c.html.

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