Identity multiassignment in ESM to radar fusion

The development of an algorithm for fusing an ESM track to multiple radar tracks is presented. This work is motivated by the difficulty of associating ESM sensor data with large measurement errors to closely-spaced radar tracks. The algorithm presents a novel approach to fusing identity information. It assigns to multiple radar tracks the identity information content of an ESM track. The identity fusion is performed using the Dempster-Shafer rule of combination. A weight based on the positional likelihood of association is included in the fusion process. Simulations of a group of targets for which angular distances are similar to the measurement errors of the ESM sensor are presented. Results show that it is possible to correctly identify a target within the group in a reasonable time interval without having to wait for the group to completely separate