Markov chain of active tracking in a radar system and its application to quantitative analysis on track formation range

Markov chains for active tracking which assigns additional track illuminations evenly between search illuminations for a radar system are presented in this article. And some quantitative analyses on track formation range are discussed by using them. Compared with track-while-search (TWS) tracking that uses scan-to-scan correlation at search illuminations for tracking of a target, active tracking has shown the maximum improvement in track formation range of about 27.6%. It is also shown that the number and detection probability of additional track beams have impact on the track formation range. For the consideration of radar resource management at the preliminary radar system design stage, the presented analysis method can be used easily without the need of Monte Carlo simulation.