An Alert-Confirm Approach To Track Confirmation

A tracker sets thresholds to confirm tentative tracks which affect the probabilities of both detecting a track and of declaring a false track. We propose a confirmation strategy inspired by the alert-confirm approach for sensor-level detection in electronically scanned radar. Tentative tracks are allowed to develop over a number of consecutive scans, after which an “alert” threshold is applied. A brief track-confirmation phase follows. Tentative tracks are further interrogated by the radar before a “confirm” threshold is applied. We present an analysis, backed by simulation studies, that shows this approach can reduce the expected time to detection by a quarter.