Measurement and Track Fusion at the System Level
Darin T. Dunham, Terry L. Ogle, Paul A. Miceli · 2023
One line of thinking is that measurement fusion at the system level provides enough value to warrant the cost of communicating the measurement level information to the system level. Another line of thinking is that in general the tracks generated at the source are sufficient to convey the information needed at the system level. There is no argument that measurements provide theoretically more information, but is the cost worth the possible extra value? This paper builds on our previous work that began to explore this issue with a straightforward simulation setup. In the previous paper it was shown that measurement fusion at the system level is better than just source track fusion at the system level. Those results were obtained when the update rate of measurements at the source were the same rate as the source tracks sent. In reality, the source tracks are produced at the full measurement rate, and the full measurement rate is not likely to be sent to the system level. Thus, this paper looks at disparate rates at the source level versus the system level. That is, the tracks produced at the source level will have a higher update rate than the rate at which measurements are sent to the system level to fuse.