Maneuver detection using the radar range rate measurement

Tracking maneuvering targets with radar is complicated because radar cannot directly measure target accelerations. We use the range rate measurement to calculate a new statistic that is a surrogate measurement of target acceleration under a constant rate turn model. Its distribution is found via simulation. A threshold test of the statistic turns out to be a reliable detector of a maneuver. A tracker that uses a threshold test of the new statistic of accelerations to detect maneuvers and set. the process noise in a Kalman filter tracker is developed and compared with other, common maneuvering track filters. The new method compares favorably to a two mode interacting multiple model (IMM) and a tracker that switches process noise levels based on the position measurement innovations.