Target Tracking Using a 2D Radar
Marelize Kriel, Herman le Roux · 2012
This chapter briefly outlines a few mathematical techniques to track targets in 3D using a 2D radar.2D radars are relatively cheap and efficient sensors that often form the first line of defence in airspace control.In military applications they are often used as early-warning devices because they can detect approaching enemy aircraft or missiles at great distances.In case of an attack, early detection of the enemy is vital for a successful defence against attack.Depending on the threat evaluation of tracked aircraft the tracking process is passed along to 3D search radars or fire control tracking radars once it comes into range of those sensors.A key component in the above hierarchy is the threat evaluation component.It relies on many factors such as angle of incidence towards defended assets, time to approach to defended asset, speed of target and so forth.The normal 2D radar provides range and azimuth but the altitude of the target is omitted.This can be an important consideration as aircraft altitude limits the attack profiles a target can fly [1]. HEIGHT ESTIMATIONThe current literature regarding height estimation restricts itself to computations involving two or more 2D radars where the height can be completely determined by simple geometric computations.In this section we present some mathematical methods to infer aircraft altitude from two updates given by a single 2D radar [2].A single 2D radar source cannot directly determine the altitude of aircraft, thus naturally, the method presented here is either coupled with a number of assumptions and limitations or is a mere approximation.The terms height and altitude are used interchangeably.Height often refers to the height of an aircraft above ground level, and altitude the height of the aircraft above mean sea level.The proposed techniques do not consider terrain,