NUMERICA CORPORATION — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: N141-036

Description

Surface target tracking in the littoral environment is challenging because of a combination of issues including the presence of highly maneuverable small water-craft, occlusions due to waves or larger vessels, and the inability of any single shipboard sensor to maintain coverage on all objects at all times. This program seeks to develop a solution that intelligently combines data from multiple sensors to overcome these challenges. Numerica is an industry leader in the development of multi-sensor, multi-target tracking algorithms and has successfully deployed high-quality tracking systems in many domains. Under previous Navy funded efforts, Numerica developed specializations of its multi-hypothesis tracking system to the surface domain that included small boat cluster tracking, small boat maneuver models, fusion of radar and EO/IR sensor data, merged measurement processing for surface search radars, and mitigation techniques for residual sensor biases. In the proposed Phase I effort, Numerica plans to demonstrate how this mature technology can be leveraged to establish a high-quality surface track picture for Aegis. Numerica will develop concepts for further specialization of the tracking system to the unique problems faced by Aegis and will establish a plan for providing a capability that could be readily transitioned into the Navy's product line architecture.