General tracking performance description for systems of sensors

Traditionally, radar or sensor performance is reviewed in terms of detection ranges and measurement accuracy. Today, when the radar often is a part of a locally integrated sensor system, which shall cooperate with other sensor systems, other performance parameters are required for evaluation and comparison of various solutions. The present paper gives an analysis method for descriptions of the tracking performance over the entire surveillance volume. It is also shown how the tracking performance can be visualized and interpreted. Furthermore, given that the user has chosen his preferred performance metrics, the paper shows how the analysis can be used as a decision aid, by comparing the existing system performance with the performance of a planned system configuration. Finally, the advantages of sensor data fusion are often asked for to be quantified. With the approach taken this can be done. The paper shows the tracking performance for a system of sensors, at each point in the volume, either as picking the best set of data from the individual sensors, or as the optimally fused data.