Observability Enhancement of Maneuvering Target with Bearings-Only Information

The paper considers the problem of maximizing observability of a maneuvering target in an aerial engagement. The only information available to the pursuer is the relative bearing measurements in the vehicle-fixed frame. Detailed analysis of the measurement equation derives a sufficient condition for range observability in terms of target-pursuer relative lateral acceleration histories. Further, an approximate performance measure maximizing the range observability is derived using the notion of the Fisher information matrix and Cramer-Rao lower bound. As an application of the analysis, a rendezvous scenario of two unmanned aerial vehicles is considered and a cooperative leader maneuver maximizing the observability criterion is derived. Error ellipsoid plots representing state estimate accuracy are presented in support of the analytical findings.