Passive Angle Tracking in a Distributed Sensor Environment

In the modern electronic warfare environment a network-centric tracking system will have to function in a variety of jamming scenarios. The coordinated use of multiple distributed sensors by network communication has the potential to substantially improve track state estimates, associated feature and attribute estimates, and combat identification (CID) of targets, even in the presence of enemy countermeasures. The improvement is primarily due to geometric diversity, complementary sensor information, and different coverage areas and these effects are precisely those that are particularly desirable for tracking problems involving passive angle measurements. With respect to tracking, multiple target tracking methods divide into two broad classes, namely single frame and multiple frame methods. The performance advantage of the multiple frame methods over the single frame methods follows from the ability to hold difficult decisions in abeyance until more information is available or, equivalently, the opportunity to change past decisions to improve current decisions. Accordingly, the focus of this research will be the interaction of ECM scenarios with advanced multi-target multi-sensor multiple frame tracking algorithms and to provide network-centric processing of passive angle measurements.