Modeling refraction errors for simulation studies of multisensor target tracking

Approximations are derived for the delay and bending of a wavefront propagating through the class of spherically symmetric refractivity profiles which decay exponentially with altitude. These approximations are derived by formulating the quantities of interest in terms of an optimization problem, the solution of which is then estimated for an appropriately chosen candidate path. Based on these approximations, a simple model is introduced to simulate the residual measurement errors remaining after the application of a notional refraction correction algorithm. The application of this model to the simulation of multi-sensor, multi-platform tracking is discussed.