Constrained tracking filters for A-SMGCS

The Advanced Surface Movement Guidance and Control System (A-SMGCS) requirements are challenging because airports have many shadowing problems, targets with dgferent dynamics and minimal spatial separation, heavy clutter and multipath. This paper illustrates a new approach to the tracking applied to the data of the SMR (Surface Movement Radar) based on Variable Structure Interactive Multiple Model (VS- IMW which uses the airport map data. On the airport the target movement is in fact locally constrained by roads and runways, while in proximity of junctions the targets have a limited numbers of manoeuvres. The improvement brought by the VS-IMM with respect to the classical tracking algorithm has been demonstrated by simulation results and application to real data.