Multi sensor tracking function on modern anti-air-warfare (AAW) frigates

The paper describes the multi sensor tracking function developed by Alenia Marconi Systems (AMS) (Italy) for the combat management system (CMS) on the new anti-air-warfare (AAW) ´Horizon´ frigates (an Italian/French cooperation programme). AMS has already implemented this function on Italian fast patrol boats and it is also implementing it on several other vessels for the Italian Navy. The multi sensor tracking function provides on-board above water sensor data to contribute to the compilation of the tactical picture (TP), a representation of the tactical situation, together with other surveillance information. The other data are not taken into account in the multi sensor tracking process, but contribute within the CMS for building the TP. The AAW frigates are equipped with a complete set of surveillance sensors, comprising several radar systems as well as an interrogation friend-or-foe (IFF) system and an infra red alerting system (IRAS). The multi sensor tracking function performs the following tasks: a) detecting if reports provided by different sensors are the representation of the same real world object (RWO), in the affirmative case correlating reports between them and producing the multi sensor track as the best RWO representation; b) reducing false alarm rate acting on the initialisation function; c) performing the best kinematic parameter estimation.