Evaluation methods for distributed multi-platform systems in electronic warfare and information-warfare related missions

The design of a performance evaluation (PE) process for any multi-sensor fusion-based system involves the design of a separate data fusion process involving association and estimation functions for PE purposes per se. Our publications to date have developed the theoretical and architectural groundings for this new PE process. In this paper, we show our research efforts related to extending the design and application of this methodology to air-to-air engagement problems involving higher-levels of data fusion capability (situation and threat estimation) and the employment of electronic warfare systems. The paper discusses the detailed strategies for data association, metrics estimation, and also the analytical techniques that exploit the formality of the methods of statistical design of experiments (DOE) and analysis of variance (ANOVA) for these fusion applications. In addition, some limited-objective parametric experiments have also been carried out that show the application of the new evaluation methodology for typical tactical aircraft problems.