Weak Scattering Target Tracking with Coordinate Transformation Based Unscented Kalman Filter

Abstract

Unscented Kalman Filter (UKF) is proven to be an effective tool in monopulse radar target tracking. However, if the interested targets are with low scattering ability, it is hard for the monopulse radar to detect and track them. This paper proposes a strong scattering target based tracking method, which is to locate weak scattering targets based on locations of referenced strong scattering articles and relative geometric information of referenced articles and interested targets. In practical manipulation, some strong scatterers are firstly selected and located by the monopulse radar. Then positions of strong scatterers are to be forecasted with coordinate transformation based UKF. Finally, positions of targets with weak scattering property are achieved by computing relative geometry of reference and interested targets. A ship-tracking missile (Walleye (AGM-62A)) mission is assumed to validate the presented theory. Moreover, comparisons of monopulse radar tracking performance between with UKF and without UKF are shown to demonstrate the necessity and efficiency of UKF.