Cooperative track initiation for distributed radar network based on target track information

Distributed radar network can significantly improve target localisation accuracy on condition that targets can be successfully tracked by all radar sites. However, since different radar sites often have different signal‐to‐noise ratios with respect to even the same target, it is difficult for all radar sites to track a target simultaneously. In this case, the authors propose a cooperative track initiation algorithm for distributed radar network. It aims to improve track initiation performance of invisible radar sites that have not initiated the target track, by using target track information provided by the radar sites that have tracked the target. Based on the target track information, the invisible radar sites would predict a region where the target will be present, and decrease detection thresholds in the predicted region according to a given probability of false track initiation. Numerical results indicate that the proposed algorithm can significantly improve the probability of target track initiation.