Multistatic target tracking using specular cue initiation and directed data retrieval

The effective fusion and tracking of multistatic active sonar contacts is challenging, due to high levels of false alarm clutter present on all sonar nodes. Exploiting the occurrence of high strength detections generated by the specular geometric condition, a cueing approach can be used to selectively extract further data stored locally on the individual sonar nodes for ingestion into the multi-sensor, multitarget tracker. This approach can significantly reduce the data rate at the input to the fusion/tracking algorithm, and reduce node-to-fusion-center communication link throughput requirements. This paper describes this concept, its associated multistatic tracking algorithm, and provides results obtained using simulated multistatic data from the Multistatic Tracking Working Group (MSTWG). The results show effective tracking performance using this approach, yielding a single high quality target track with zero false tracks. The method is shown to have excellent potential in reducing the overloading of the communication links, the automated tracking algorithm, and the operator.