| Hi-index | 22.14 |
Present procedures for multiple site track correlation, an important operational element of air traffic control systems, are often empirically based and implemented using human operators. The effectiveness of these techniques as well as some proposed computer oriented techniques degrades significantly in high track density environments. In this paper several new computer correlation techniques are presented, each providing considerable improvement in performance at low computer cost. Six techniques are examined theoretically and, using a simulated scenario, compared in terms of correlation accuracy and computer requirements. The coarse-fine technique, which uses coordinate gates for limiting the number of tracks examined in the correlation process and scalar sums composed of measurement vectors and their accuracies to select among the remaining tracks, is shown to be generally suitable for implementation and to provide correlation accuracies near unity.