Author

John Markow

Date of Award

2015

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Committee Chair

Laurie L. Joiner

Committee Member

Mervin Budge

Committee Member

David Pan

Subject(s)

Hypersonic aerodynamics, Hypersonic planes, Space vehicles--Atmospheric entry, Kalman filtering, Estimation theory

Abstract

This thesis presents the design of a missile defense system with a Converted Measurement Kalman filter (CMKF) for tracking a maneuvering, hypersonic reentry vehicle. The thesis focuses on the design process, including selecting radar system parameters that notably vary system performance, and implementing a 9-state CMKF to track the target. The radar parameters studied are beamsize, range resolution and track update rate and attention is paid to the development of the Kalman filter's Q matrix. Development of the mathematical relationship between these parameters and system performance is given. The target model is an adaptation of a model developed by Ashish Tewari in his book \textit{Atmospheric and Space Flight Dynamics}~\cite{Tewari}. The model is tailored to provide a simulated target that challenges the radar's ability to establish a stable target track. The goal of this thesis is twofold: first, to demonstrate that a CMKF can track this type of target and second, to illustrate the tradeoffs between radar/tracker parameters and system performance for a given target set (hypersonic, maneuvering vehicles).

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