Tracking closely-spaced, possibly unresolved, Rayleigh targets: Idealized resolution

Abstract

In monopulse radar systems, the situation of merged measurements from closely-spaced targets results in angle-of-arrival (AOA) estimates that may be far from any of the actual targets. A monopulse processing technique for estimating the direction-of-arrivals (DOAs) for two unresolved targets from corrupted monopulse measurements was recently developed for a single angular coordinate. In this paper, that technique for DOA estimation for two Rayleigh target is extended to two angular coordinates. A procedure for incorporating possibly merged measurements into an optimal 2-D measurement-to-track assignment algorithm is developed for the case of idealized resolution (i.e., either targets are completely resolved or the measurements are fully merged). Simulation results of the new algorithm will be presented to show the improved data association performance.