NEW-CATR: Network-enabled Electronic Warfare for Collaborative Automatic Target Recognition

Network-enabled Electronic Warfare (NEW) is to develop modeling and simulation efforts to explore the advantages and limitations of network-enabled electronic warfare concepts. The advantages of linking multiple electronic support measures (ESM) and electronic attack (EA) assets to achieve improved capabilities across a networked battleforce have yet to be quantified. In this paper, we will use radar sensors as ESM and EA assets to demonstrate the advantages of NEW in Collaborative Automatic Target Recognition (CATR). We apply the NEW to CATR via waveform diversity combining and and propose maximum-likehood (ML)-ATR algorithms for nonfluctuating target as well as fluctuating target. Simulation results show that our NEW-CATR performs much better than single sensor-based ATR algorithm for nonfluctuating targets or fluctuating targets. Conclusions are drawn based on our analysis and simulations and future research works on this research topic are discussed.