# STAR: Scene- and Task-Aware 4D Radar Preprocessing Towards End-to-End Cognitive Radar

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.24151 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.24151/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 20 of its 45 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 21 Sep 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 20 of 20)

- [PointPillars: Fast Encoders for Object Detection from Point Clouds](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.05784/) (2018)
- [A Survey of Autonomous Driving: Common Practices and Emerging Technologies](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.05113/) (2019)
- [K-Radar: 4D Radar Object Detection for Autonomous Driving in Various Weather Conditions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.08171/) (2022)
- [RADIATE: A Radar Dataset for Automotive Perception in Bad Weather](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.09076/) (2020)
- [TJ4DRadSet: A 4D Radar Dataset for Autonomous Driving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.13483/) (2022)
- [Scan Context++: Structural Place Recognition Robust to Rotation and Lateral Variations in Urban Environments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.13494/) (2021)
- [Raw High-Definition Radar for Multi-Task Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.10646/) (2021)
- [RadarScenes: A Real-World Radar Point Cloud Data Set for Automotive Applications](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.02493/) (2021)
- [LXL: LiDAR Excluded Lean 3D Object Detection with 4D Imaging Radar and Camera Fusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.00724/) (2023)
- [SMURF: Spatial Multi-Representation Fusion for 3D Object Detection with 4D Imaging Radar](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.10784/) (2023)
- [T-FFTRadNet: Object Detection with Swin Vision Transformers from Raw ADC Radar Signals](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.16940/) (2023)
- [Exploring Radar Data Representations in Autonomous Driving: A Comprehensive Review](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.04861/) (2023)
- [MVFAN: Multi-View Feature Assisted Network for 4D Radar Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.16389/) (2023)
- [Enhanced K-Radar: Optimal Density Reduction to Improve Detection Performance and Accessibility of 4D Radar Tensor-based Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.06342/) (2023)
- [ADCNet: Learning from Raw Radar Data via Distillation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.11420/) (2023)
- [MUFASA: Multi-View Fusion and Adaptation Network with Spatial Awareness for Radar Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.00565/) (2024)
- [Radars for Autonomous Driving: A Review of Deep Learning Methods and Challenges](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.09304/) (2023)
- [CORENet: Cross-Modal 4D Radar Denoising Network with LiDAR Supervision for Autonomous Driving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.13485/) (2025)
- [HyperDet: 3D Object Detection with Hyper 4D Radar Point Clouds](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.11554/) (2026)
- [RADE-Net: Robust Attention Network for Radar-Only Object Detection in Adverse Weather](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.19994/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Four-dimensional (4D) Radar has emerged as a key sensor for environmental perception, providing range, azimuth, elevation, and Doppler measurements while remaining robust to illumination changes and adverse weather conditions. However, conventional Radar preprocessing methods, such as constant false alarm rate (CFAR) detection, select measurements primarily based on signal-level criteria and may therefore discard information valuable for downstream perception during point cloud generation. In addition, existing 4D Radar perception pipelines typically optimize Radar data processing and downstream perception independently, preventing task objectives from directly guiding the preprocessing stage. To address these limitations, we propose a Scene- and Task-Aware Radar (STAR) Preprocessor together with an end-to-end training framework. The STAR Preprocessor incorporates scene context and downstream task objectives to generate task-relevant Radar points, enabling the Radar representation to be optimized directly for perception. On the K-Radar benchmark, the proposed method achieves 74.3 AP, outperforming the previous state of the art by 5.6 AP points. Furthermore, applying the task-relevant points generated by STAR to various existing 3D detectors improves detection performance in most evaluation settings and yields an overall positive average gain over point clouds produced by conventional preprocessing.