Advanced Fire Control/Fusion Methods

In current and developing air combat systems, issues of operational flexibility and reliability have gained substantial interest. It would be desirable for one aircraft's fire control system to be able to take advantage of sensor data from other platforms, for several reasons. First, this would give each aircraft access to sensors that it may not mount; for example, long-range search sensors or intelligence sources. Second, it would give each aircraft access to similar sensors that are differently located, and can see different targets; for example, on other aircraft in the same flight. Third, it might give an aircraft a means to carry out its mission, even when some of it sensors have failed. SYNETICS approach to solving this problem, the Multi-Aircraft Networked Tracking Architecture (MANTA), is based on recent advances in statistical filter theory that have been used successfully in other Air Force programs. The tracking filters on each aircraft accept both own-ship sensor data, at sensor (high) rates, and "summarized" other-ship data obtained through the communications channel (e.g. JTIDS) at relatively low rates.