Comment on “Advances in aircraft-height estimation using distance-measuring equipment“ [and reply]

The author comments that in the paper of Manolakis and Dounis (see ibid., vol.143, no.1, p. 47-52, 1996) equation 17 consists of too many terms and, while deriving the various terms, s₁ and S₂ are not defined, leaving no scope to cross-check the solution. Later, while deriving equation 19, s₁ and s₂ are defined and these may hold good in equation 17 as well. It is true that equation 19 offers less computational burden than that required while considering equation 17. However, the terms required to obtain each component are enormously large in number. A simpler procedure is proposed for height computation. Manolakis et al. reply that their main purpose was to derive an efficient algorithm (not the more efficient one). In addition, they would like a mathematically tractable algorithm to facilitate the performance analysis with respect to the mean value and the standard deviation of the estimation errors. Both these objectives are accomplished by the simple formula presented