Sensor Fusion Enhanced Situational Awareness of a High Maneuver Aircraft by IMM Algorithm

This paper proposes an Interacting Multiple Model (IMM) sensor fusion algorithm to optimize cockpit resources and enhance situational awareness. The IMM method can effectively handle complex target motion by operating multiple Kalman filters, which constitute a widely utilized method for combining data from multiple sensors. Integrating sensor fusion with the IMM framework increases the robustness and reliability of the algorithm and extends its applicability to high maneuver motion. This paper demonstrates the efficacy of this approach in high maneuver scenarios using both real-world data from an airborne radar unit and simulated data from two ground radar stations. The use of the IMM sensor fusion algorithm improved three-dimensional positioning accuracy by 31% compared with that of the airborne radar alone, thus highlighting the enhanced situational awareness achieved by using sensor fusion.