Alpha-beta tracking filter combined with maneuver-driven circular prediction

In track-while-scan systems using phased array antennas, α-β filters have been employed. An α-β filter can estimate reliably the target position and velocity operating in real-time. However, when the target maneuvers, the quality of position and velocity estimates provided by α-β filters can degrade significantly. The target may be lost, since the filter uses only linear prediction. In this paper, we take notice of the fact that a maneuvering target trajectory can be regarded as an arc and propose the use of an α-β tracking filter combined with maneuver-driven circular prediction as a scheme to estimate target position using nonlinear prediction. Simulation results for three target profiles are included for comparison of the performance of our proposed scheme with that of a conventional α-β tracking filter and a Kalman filter. The effectiveness of our proposed scheme is examined by means of a computational simulation.