Radar track association / by Michael L. Southcott.

Abstract

Presents a novel system for automated track association, which provides significant improvement on previously proposed methods. The track association system is designed on the premise that the characteristic pattenrs of multimode propagation are a function of the ionospheric conditions. One component of the track association system models the multimode patterns over the radar coverage. An estimated multimode patterns can be compared to the patterns formed by observed tracks, to determine if the observed tracks are multimode tracks from a common target. The comparison of the estimated multimode patterns to be observed track patterns is performed with an association metric. The association metric requires certain parameters of the multimode patterns to be modelled over the radar coverage.