International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 25-28, 1999 / Riviera Hotel and Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / The use of Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers as a source to provide Time Space and Position Information (TSPI), and Miss Distance Indication (MDI) data in Test and Evaluation (T&E) applications is being considered. Specifically, GPS receivers are being evaluated to determine their usefulness as a sensor in a Sidewinder missile telemetry system (AN/DKT-80). Initial testing has indicated that position information generated from a GPS receiver can provide significantly better position data than a radar tracking system when using Double Differential error correction techniques. This concept requires a GPS reference station to be located in the general proximity of the Telemetry data-receiving site. Software has been developed that will compare GPS data from the airborne telemetry system to the GPS reference station and display a real-time TSPI solution. This software will also provide MDI information from two different airborne sources that are equipped with GPS receivers (missile and drone). To prove out this concept, a Commercial Off the Shelf (COTS) Commercially/Available (C/A) code GPS receiver was integrated into the AN/DKT-80 Sidewinder telemetry system (TM). A MQM-107 drone was instrumented with the same GPS receiver, as was a ground based reference station. A simple TM was developed for the drone that telemeters only the GPS data. The modified AN/DKT-80 system incorporated an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) into the design. Post processing software was developed that will integrate the IMU information with the GPS data so accurate position can be generated if the GPS data was momentarily lost. A missile firing is scheduled for the spring of 1999 to prove this concept.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 27-30, 1997 / Riviera Hotel and Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / A target missile is a unique piece of test hardware. This test tool must be highly reliable, low cost and simple and must perform any task that the developing interceptor missile planners require. The target missile must have ample power and guidance resources to put the target in a specified place in the sky at a desired time. The telemetry and measurement system for the target missile must have the same requirements as its interceptor missile but must be flexible enough to accept new requirements as they are applied to the target and its interceptor. The United States Army has tasked Coleman Aerospace to design and build this type of target missile. This paper describes and analyzes the telemetry and instrumentation system that a Hera target missile carries. This system has been flying for the past two years, has completed seven out of seven successful test flights and has accomplished all test objectives to date. The telemetry and instrumentation system is an integral part of the missile self-test system. All preflight checks and flight simulations are made with the on-board three-link telemetry system through a radio frequency (RF) link directly through the missile antenna system to a ground station antenna. If an RF transmission path is not available due to test range restrictions, a fiber-optic cable links the pulse code modulator (PCM) encoder to the receiving ground stations which include the bitsync, decommutator and recorders. With this capability, alternative testing is not limited by RF test range availability. The ground stations include two mobile stations and a factory station for all testing including preflight testing of the missile system prior to flight test launches. These three ground stations are built in a single configuration with additional equipment in the mobile units for use at remote locations. The design, fabrication, testing and utilization of these ground stations are reviewed. The telemetry system is a modification of the classical PCM system and will operate with its interceptor missile at least into the first decade from the year 2000.

[Truncated abstract] The multi-object filtering problem is a logical and fundamental generalization of the ubiquitous single-object vector filtering problem. Multi-object filtering essentially concerns the joint detection and estimation of the unknown and time-varying number of objects present, and the dynamic state of each of these objects, given a sequence of observation sets. This problem is intrinsically challenging because, given an observation set, there is no knowledge of which object generated which measurement, if any, and the detected measurements are indistinguishable from false alarms. Multi-object filtering poses significant technical challenges, and is indeed an established area of research, with many applications in both military and commercial realms. The new and emerging approach to multi-object filtering is based on the formal theory of random finite sets, and is a natural, elegant and rigorous framework for the theory of multiobject filtering, originally proposed by Mahler. In contrast to traditional approaches, the random finite set framework is completely free of explicit data associations. The random finite set framework is adopted in this dissertation as the basis for a principled and comprehensive study of multi-object filtering. The premise of this framework is that the collection of object states and measurements at any time are treated namely as random finite sets. A random finite set is simply a finite-set-valued random variable, i.e. a random variable which is random in both the number of elements and the values of the elements themselves. Consequently, formulating the multiobject filtering problem using random finite set models precisely encapsulates the essence of the multi-object filtering problem, and enables the development of principled solutions therein. '...' The performance of the proposed algorithm is demonstrated in simulated scenarios, and shown at least in simulation to dramatically outperform traditional single-object filtering in clutter approaches. The second key contribution is a mathematically principled derivation and practical implementation of a novel algorithm for multi-object Bayesian filtering, based on moment approximations to the posterior density of the random finite set state. The performance of the proposed algorithm is also demonstrated in practical scenarios, and shown to considerably outperform traditional multi-object filtering approaches. The third key contribution is a mathematically principled derivation and practical implementation of a novel algorithm for multi-object Bayesian filtering, based on functional approximations to the posterior density of the random finite set state. The performance of the proposed algorithm is compared with the previous, and shown to appreciably outperform the previous in certain classes of situations. The final key contribution is the definition of a consistent and efficiently computable metric for multi-object performance evaluation. It is shown that the finite set theoretic state space formulation permits a mathematically rigorous and physically intuitive construct for measuring the estimation error of a multi-object filter, in the form of a metric. This metric is used to evaluate and compare the multi-object filtering algorithms developed in this dissertation.