Sensor Positioning and Selection in Sensor Networks for Target Tracking

Current practice in maritime planning operations is the separation in space and time domain. An adaptive and near real time sensor allocation mechanism would mean a significant step forward towards implementing NEC, and would make better use of the distributed sensor resources. To realize a NEC systems concept, the coordination between naval units has to increase. The combat management system has to extend its functionality over multiple networked platforms. Sensor management (SM), as part of the C2 loop, has to be automated and applied across ships. As a step forwards, here we divide automated SM into sensor selection and sensor positioning. The goal is to automatically allocate a network of sensors based on their characteristics. The sensor selection process serves to find the appropriate sensor for doing an observation. Sensor positioning determines the best sensor positions to best deploy the sensor capabilities in the near future. Terminology like ‘appropriate’ and ‘best deployment’ imply an optimization process, minimizing a cost function, that acts as the driver mechanism for sensor selection and positioning. As part of the operational picture compilation process, in this paper sensor selection and positioning are applied to optimize the target track accuracy.