NUMERICAL SOLUTIONS FOR AIRCRAFT TRACKING AND POSITION PREDICTION

THE OBJECTIVE OF THIS PROGRAM IS TO DESIGN A COMPUTER ALGORITHM AND PROTOTYPE IMPLEMENTATION TO TRACK AIRCRAFT IN A SPARSE REPORTING ENVIRONMENT. THE PROBABILITY DENSITY FUNCTION OF THE OBSERVED AIRCRAFT WILL BE PROPAGATED BETWEEN ARRIVALS OF NEW TARGET REPORTS BYMEANS OF THE NUMERICAL SOLUTION OF A PARTIAL DIFFERENTIAL EQUATION OF EVOLUTION OF A NONLINEAR STOCHASTIC DIFFERENTIALEQUATION OF AIRCRAFT MOTION. THE RESULTING NON-GAUSSIAN DENSITY WILL BE COMBINED WITH NEW REPORTS USING BAYESIAN METHODS TO UPDATE ESTIMATES OF AIRCRAFT POSITION. IN ORDER TO PERFORM THE TRACKING FUNCTION IN REALTIME, THE ALGORITHM WILL BE DESIGNED TO WORK IN A PARALLED COMPUTING ENVIRONMENT. WHEN IMPLEMENTED IN THE APPROPRIATE MULTIPROCESSOR ENVIRONMENT, THE ALGORITHM WILL IMPROVE THE PERFORMANCE OF ACURRENTLY OPERATIONAL SOFTWARE SYSTEM USED FOR AIRCRAFT DETECTION AND TRACKING.