A Real Time Test Bed for 2D and 3D Multi-Radar Tracking and Data Fusion with Application to Border Control

This paper describes part of the activities required to model and assess the performance of a national integrated system (NIS) in the context of homeland security and in particular on border control issues. The border control requires an accurate surveillance of the terrestrial, maritime and overland boundaries, thus involving a wide number of heterogeneous sensors, command and control centres, platforms and communication networks. One of the layers of the integrated system is composed by radar sensors; these sensors can be ground or ship based, 1D or 3D. The paper deals with the problem of correlation and fusion of track data pertaining to ground and ship based, 2D and 3D radar sensors directly in the radar sites. Then, the improved (i.e. more accurate) information can be soon made available for a number of radar functions, such as: (i) re-pointing of the beam along the threat direction of arrival, (ii) energy and time management, (iii) cue of other sensors (i.e. infrared) or proper reaction means (patrol boat), (iv) preliminary classification of potential hostile targets. The updating and testing of the data extractor (DE) of a notional surveillance radar system is presented; the modified hardware and software is capable of acquiring, managing and fusing tracks pertaining to the radar system housing the DE and to other systems connected to the DE itself