Evidence-Based Contact Tracking
E-BaCT
Brian W. Guimond
Steven Nardone
MIKEL, Inc
USW Solutions
Outline
• The Objective: Generate the Tactical Picture
• Current Technology: “The Legacy System”
• E-BaCT: A New Paradigm
• Experimental Results
• Conclusions
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Objective
Tactical Picture
Time
Sensor Data
RY
Azimuth Bearing
RX
Transform Sensor Data into the Tactical Picture
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Current Technology
Contact Tracking via State Estimation
• Given a history of associated measurements
(bearings) find the state (range, bearing course
and speed) of each contact of interest.
• State Estimation Methods
•
•
•
Extended Kalman Filter
Monte Carlo Methods (Particle Filter)
Manual Adaptive Target Evaluator (MATE)
• Associated Bearing Measurement History
•
Contact Followers
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Legacy System Process
Contact
Estimate
β
t
Contact Follower
β(ti)
Associated Bearings
Ownship
State Estimate
 
xˆ  t   minx β t - β x t 
i
 i
 x (t ) - x0 (t i ) 
β(t i ) = tan -1  t i

 y t (t i ) - y 0 (t i ) 

2
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Legacy System Challenges
High Bearing-Rate
Contacts
Crossing Contacts
Intermittent Traces
(Sphere Array Baffles)
Splitting/Merging
Traces
Solution: Manual Association
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Evidence-Based Contact Tracking*
The Paradigm
Given a set of admissible solutions determine
the aggregated evidence that supports or
refutes each solution.
The Design Process
•
•
•
•
Design the Set of Admissible Solutions
Identify/Extract Features
Aggregate Features
Extract Solution and Quality Measure
H. Maranda and J. A. Fawcett, ”Detection and localization of weak targets by
space-time integration,” IEEE J 0f Ocean Eng., vol. 16, no. 2, pp. 189-194, April 1991.
*B.
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Illustrative E-BaCT Processor
Sensor Data
Features
Aggregated Features
200
200
180
Energy
160
180
140
160
120
100
140
Time
80
60
120
40
20
100
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
160
180
200
80
Admissible Solution
60
200
180
Signal Cells
160
40
140
20
120
100
20
80
40
60
80
100
120
140
160
180
200
60
40
Solution Extraction
20
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
160
180
200
Geographic Plot
Bearing
15
200
180
160
140
Bearing-Rate
10
120
100
Admissible
Solutions
80
60
40
20
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
160
180
200
5
200
180
160
Speed
0
140
120
0
100
5
10
15
X-Range(kyrd)
80
60
40
20
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
160
180
200
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Example 1
Amplitude
High Bearing-Rate Low SNR Contact
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Example 1: Towed Array Contact
BTR Input Data
Geoplot
Contact Solution
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E-BaCT Solutions
Range History
Bearing (deg)
Range (kyrds)
Bearing History
Time (sec)
Bearing Rate
(deg/min)
Normalized Range Rate
(%/min)
Time (sec)
Time (sec)
Normalized Range Rate History
Time (sec)
Bearing Rate History
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Example 2: Towed Array Contact
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Example 3: Multi-Contact
BTR Input Data
Tactical Picture
Solution Validation
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Summary
• Evidence-based contact tracking is new paradigm for
developing the tactical picture from sensor data and heuristic
information.
• Paradigm inherently associates data and information in time
across a set of admissible solutions and thereby avoids the
need for contact followers.
• A prototype combat control system has been developed for
processing sphere and towed array data.
• Experimental designs have been extended to the wide aperture
array and multisensor data processing.
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Thank You for Your Attention
Questions?
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