Operating condition modeling for ATR fusion assessment

Real world Operating Conditions (OCs) influence sensor data that in turn affects the performance of target detection and identification systems utilizing the collected information. The impact of operating conditions on collected data is widely accepted, but not fully characterized. OCs that affect data depend on sensor wavelength and associated scenario phenomenology, and can vary significantly between electro-optical (EO), infrared (IR), and radar sensors. This paper will discuss what operating conditions might be modeled for each sensor type and how they could affect automatic target recognition (ATR) systems designed to exploit their respective sensory data. The OCs are broken out into four categories; sensor, environment, target, and ATR algorithm training. These main categories will further contain subcategories with varying levels of influence. The purpose of this work is to develop an OC distribution model for the "real world" that can be used to realistically represent the performance of multiple ATR systems, and ultimately the decision made from the fused ATR results. An accurate OC model will greatly enhance the performance assessment of ATR and fusion systems by affording Bayesian conditioning in fusion performance analysis and aiding in the sensitivity analysis of fusion performance over different operational conditions. Accurate OC models will also be useful in the fusion algorithm operation.

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