Techniques for Comparison of Actual Target Signatures to Rendered or Synthetically Generated Models

Digital and hardware-in-the loop simulations have become essential to the development of modern sensors and weapon systems. The use of these simulations speeds development, offsets field test costs and provides the opportunity to assess system performance for operational conditions that cannot be practically tested any other way. The evaluation of signal/image processing algorithms along with sensor performance is often the primary goal of these simulations. The value of these simulations is only realized when the fidelity of the synthetic target and clutter models is sufficient to provide an acceptable assessment of performance. Some statistical methods, which have been used in the past to assess the fidelity of synthetic models compared to actual field measurements, have not provided the necessary understanding of the quality of the synthetic models. This research will improve synthetic model verification capabilities by demonstrating techniques to quantitatively compare synthetic models with data collected during field tests. The Phase II effort includes the development of software tools and demonstrations of the comparison of synthetic models and measured signatures for radar, imaging infrared and ladar sensors/weapon systems.