Kalman Filter Tracking of A Ballistic Missile Using Forward Looking Infrared Measurements and Doppler Returns
Abstract
The Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) has been involved in developing Kalman Filter trackers for airborne targets for the last 14 years. The goal of this particular thesis was to track a ballistic missile in the boost phase at ranges up to 2000 km, in order to control a high energy laser weapon designed to destroy the target The filter developed combined an existing 'FLIR' filter, which estimated location of the plume intensity centroid based on measurements from a forward looking infrared sensor (FLIR), and an existing center-of-mass filter, which estimated the offset between the plume and missile center-of-mass based on measurements from low-energy laser reflections. In addition, the new filter modeled the oscillation of the rocket plume with respect to the missile hardbody, known as the pogo affect, in the hopes of improving overall tracking performance. Filter performance is analyzed through use of Monte Carlo simulation software developed at AFIT. This thesis also performed observability tests on various filter configurations in order to gain insight into observability problems identified during earlier research. Observability of states is measured through the use of both stochastic observability testing and Monte Carlo analysis of the filter models using the Multimode Simulation for Optimal Filter Evaluation (MSOFE) software.... Kalman filter, Tracking, Infrared, Doppler, Laser.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Dec 15, 1992
- Accession Number
- ADA258899
Entities
People
- Michael L. Ching
Organizations
- Air Force Institute of Technology