Simple Kalman gains for filtering position and velocity measurements

An alternate set of equations is given for the exact computation of the Kalman gains under the conditions of no maneuvering input noise and measurements in position and velocity. They are simpler than the standard recursive equations, and are useful in applications where implementation of the standard Kalman filter is not possible due to real-time restrictions. When there is maneuvering input noise, the same gains can still approximate the optimal gains with a very minor degradation in performance, even when some parameters, for example the measurement interval, change during a track. Simulation studies have indicated that there is negligible performance degradation with this method of gain approximation