Design and implementation of a fully automated OTH radar tracking system

Detection and tracking systems for OTH radars typically require manual oversight because of clutter, noise, and propagation conditions. The authors have designed and constructed a tracking system that eliminates this intervention. The system is based on a two-stage approach that detects low-SNR tracks in the raw data without amplitude-based peak detection. The resulting tracker has been tested under a variety of conditions and found to be robust and accurate. A version of the tracking system has been in production use at the authors' R&D OTH facility since 1992.