Properties and performance of extended target motion analysis

Classical array processing are based upon a short-time analysis followed by source tracking, target motion analysis (TMA) and data association. However, for numerous practical applications (e.g. passive sonar), a large amount of spatio-temporal data is available. It seems, then, possible to use globally all these data in order to separate, detect and track the sources by using their respective trajectories. In this spatio-temporal approach, the concept of source trajectory replaces the concept of instantaneous source bearing for the classical analysis. This article tries to build a bridge between two major areas of statistical signal processing which are classical array processing and the TMA