PRINCIPLES OF RADAR TRACKING

Luke Anderson, Ankur Bakshi, Kareem Elnahal, Joe Kelly, David Kim, Vikram Modi, Adam Pantel, and Joe Park, Alex Schnayder, Alex Sood, Andrew Weintraub

Advisor: Randy Heuer
Assistant: Karl Strohmaier

ABSTRACT

Radar alone gives noisy estimates of a target's location and is incapable of directly measuring velocity. To rectify these shortcomings, we researched linear estimators, a class of algorithms that more accurately estimate position and velocity. We chose the Kalman filter because of its simplicity, efficiency, and low memory requirements. We developed a Visual Basic .NET console application that returned the target's positions and velocities. The program typically provided position estimates within a radius of half a mile of the true positions and returned velocity estimates within a range of three miles per hour.