Target Detection and Tracking in Maritime Surveillance Mission

Target detection and tracking is an important element of military operations. Military commanders and personnel have been allocating and continue to allocate resources into the assessment of platforms' performances in target detection, tracking, identification and classification to assist in decision making regarding the allocation of military assets for surveillance missions. We present an application of target detection and tracking by military aircraft in maritime surveillance mission. We modelled platforms' capabilities and targets' motion and performed simulations of the scenario. Performance of military aircraft is quantified by the time taken to complete the mission, the percentage of targets detected and the extent of surveillance completed. Results show that the joint operation of the UAVs and the helicopter gives better detection results than the sole performance of the helicopter.