State estimation approach for live aircraft engagement in a C2 simulation environment

Abstract

The increased use of simulations during live air defense exercises requires interoperability between different Command and Control (C2) systems and simulators. By accepting air picture or sensor tracks from each other, C2 systems and simulators can react to or engage targets between live and simulated worlds in various ways. State estimation of live aircraft can be a challenge when data from dedicated aircraft transponders is not available. In such cases air picture data have to be used. Often the data is then available only through C2-oriented communications protocols that may introduce temporal and spatial errors. This paper presents an algorithm for modeling aircraft within a real-time simulation environment using only track position data from external C2 systems and simulators. The predicted flight path is smoothed and realistic aircraft orientation, such as banking in a turn, is also introduced