Abstract-Micro-Doppler radar signatures have a great potential for classifying pedestrians and animals, as well as their motion pattern, in a variety of surveillance applications. Due to the many degrees of freedom involved, real data needs to be complemented with accurate simulated radar data to successfully be able to design and test radar signal processing algorithms. In many cases, the ability to collect real data is limited by monetary and practical considerations, whereas in a simulated environment any desired scenario may be generated. Motion capture has been used in several works to simulate the human micro-Doppler signature measured by radar; however, validation of the approach has only been done based on visual comparisons of micro-Doppler signatures. This work validates and, more importantly, extends the exploitation of motion capture data not just to simulate micro-Doppler signatures but also to use the simulated signatures as a source of a priori knowledge to improve the classification performance of real radar data, especially in the case when the total amount of data is small.