Track Maintenance
Track maintenance is the process in which a decision is made about whether to end the life of a track. If a track was not associated with a plot during the plot to track association phase, then there is a chance that the target may no longer exist (for instance, an aircraft may have landed or flown out of radar cover). Alternatively, however, there is a chance that the radar may have just failed to see the target at that update, but will find it again on the next update. Common approaches to deciding on whether to terminate a track include:
- If the target was not seen for the past M consecutive update opportunities (typically M=3 or so)
- If the target was not seen for the past M out of N most recent update opportunities
- If the target's track uncertainty (covariance matrix) has grown beyond a certain threshold
Read more about this topic: Radar Tracker
Famous quotes containing the words track and/or maintenance:
“The universe constantly and obediently answers to our conceptions; whether we travel fast or slow, the track is laid for us. Let us spend our lives in conceiving then. The poet or the artist never yet had so fair and noble a design but some of his posterity at least could accomplish it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“However patriarchal the world, at home the child knows that his mother is the source of all power. The hand that rocks the cradle rules his world. . . . The son never forgets that he owes his life to his mother, not just the creation of it but the maintenance of it, and that he owes her a debt he cannot conceivably repay, but which she may call in at any time.”
—Frank Pittman (20th century)