Centripetal Acceleration Statistic for Tracking Maneuvering Targets with Radar

摘要

Maneuver tracking is complicated because radar cannot directly measure target acceleration. Radar measures a target's range and bearing, and its radial velocity with respect to radar position. Tracking algorithms use radial velocity to associate radar reports to tracks, but not to update track state estimates. In this paper, a new statistic of centripetal acceleration based on the radial velocity measurement is developed. A tracker using this statistic is developed and tested via simulation against three other tracking algorithms. Simulation results show that the new tracker outperforms trackers with switched noise levels and a two mode interacting multiple model.