Sensor management simulation and comparative study

Within the framework of a command and control system, vast amounts of data are being collected and processed from a variety of dissimilar sensors. Through sensor management, sensor usage is integrated to accomplish specific and often dynamic mission objectives. Every opportunity a sensor has to measure the environment can be equated to a reduction in uncertainty in its state, and hence a quantifiable amount of information. A difficulty arises when the data from sensors is not directly comparable as in the case of kinematic and nonkinematic sensors. This paper expands on our previous work, in which a modest multiple sensor, multiple threat simulation model was built to demonstrate the use of Information Theory in sensor management. The simulation model was used to demonstrate the use of Information Theory to effectively deal with the target tracking and target search decision problem. This paper builds upon that work by implementing the OGUPSA sensor scheduling algorithm in the simulation model with more fidelity by replacing the unit interval tasks by appropriate non-unit interval tasks and compares several sensor management methods including minimum position error and maximum information.