A Track Quality Evaluation Method Using Fractal Dimension and Tracking Continuity Metrics for Compact HFSWR

Accuracy and consistency are two important indicators of the quality for the target trajectory. The target localization accuracy of compact high frequency surface wave radar is low, which leads to the track obtained by tracking fluctuating and break easily. In order to evaluate the track quality of compact high frequency surface wave radar, a track quality evaluation method using fractal dimension and tracking continuity metrics is proposed. The fractal dimension is introduced to measure the complexity of the track in space, and the fluctuation difference between the radar track and the real track is estimated to evaluate the accuracy of the target track. The track tracking duration and the lost point rate are used to evaluate the continuity of the target tracking, and then the three indexes are weighted to form a comprehensive track quality index. The experimental results with simulated data and field data show that the proposed comprehensive quality index can effectively reflect the changes in track quality without the real values of the target state as a priori information. Compared with the existing normalized quality index using target motion parameters, the mean standard deviation of the fractal dimension index results is reduced by 67.8 %, and the evaluation results are more stable and reliable.