Tracking and identification of agile targets from armoured fighting vehicles

To deal with asymmetric and adaptive threats, situational awareness and tracking systems require an inbuilt adaptive capability that is quantitatively geared to the dynamics of the human operational context. The physical form of surveillance systems is examined and fixed sensor strategies for situational awareness systems are shown to have significant drawbacks. Steerable sensors lead to a more effective capability that achieves faster identification after first target detection and is able to support smart, adaptive scanning and tracking modes. The design of situational awareness systems is considered from the standpoint of how much information should be presented to the military user at any one time. An analysis of the human operational context is presented, leading to situational adaptation based on novel sensor link budgets, end-to-end from sensor to user.