Measures of effectiveness for multiple ROTHR track data fusion (MRTDF)

Abstract

Relocatable Over-the-Horizon Radar (ROTHR) is a long range, bi-static, high frequency radar surveillance system tasked with tracking air targets over large land and ocean areas. The long ranges, together with the relatively low altitudes of the targets, require that the radar look beyond the line-of-sight, in other words, over-the-horizon (OTH). This is accomplished by refracting the signal off the ionosphere to points beyond the horizon. In order to quantify the performance of the data fusion of multiple OTH radar tracks, several measures of effectiveness (MOEs) have been developed which correspond to the unique technical challenges facing a single OTH radar tracking system. This paper describes appropriate MOEs arising from OTH technical issues relating to ionospheric mode identification, crossing targets, and low Doppler targets. These MOEs were chosen to be sensitive to the performance that would be expected by fusing data from two OTH radar systems having overlapping coverage.