<title>Association of over-the-horizon radar tracks with tracks from microwave radar and other sources</title>

Abstract

The Jindalee Operational Radar Network (JORN) consists of a network of overlapping skywave over-the-horizon radars (OTHR) which will provide surveillance of the air space and ocean off the northern coast of Australia. An OTHR can yield multiple tracks from a single target as a result of the complex structure of the ionosphere which varies spatially and temporally. Overlapping OTHRs, microwave radars and other sensors can simultaneously form tracks on the same targets. Consequently there is a heavy burden on operators to associate and combine those tracks which are derived from the same target. The broad objective of this work is to perform the fusion of OTHR tracks with tracks from other sources such as microwave radars and targets reporting Global Positioning System (GPS) data. An efficient algorithm has been developed which can incorporate advice about the propagation paths through the ionosphere and produce a list of associations of OTHR tracks and non-OTHR tracks. This algorithm is a generalization of a previously developed algorithm for associating tracks from multiple OTHRs. It can operate in real-time and allows for the possibility of refining the ionospheric advice system based on ground registered tracks. A brief description of the association algorithm is reported with discussions on the method of determining the closeness of tracks, the management of uncertainty in the track state, and the selection of associated tracks.