(IVAR) - Final Report - Strategic Environmental Research and ...

Conclusion
In the quantitative performance objectives for PA1.1, Automatic Tracking, one performance
criterion was to use a UAV to independently confirm the target’s spatial coordinates as
determined by the radar. The comparison of the GPS position data from the RCH with the radar
tracks generated by the DRP successfully confirmed the capability of the radar to detect and
automatically track the spatial coordinates of the UAV to within 10 m even when the ranges are
uncorrected for slant-range geometry.
6.1.1.1.4 Summary Conclusions for PA1.1
We used three separate methods to successfully demonstrate the objective of PA1.1: that the
avian radar systems evaluated by the IVAR project can automatically detect and track single
birds and flocks. We first demonstrated this capability by visually confirming over 900 targets
tracked by the radars at three geographic locations in the spring of 2007 to be birds, and then that
more than 600 targets were birds at four locations in the fall 2008. Next, we demonstrated the
number of birds detected in a given sampling volume by a radar (active detection) were
comparable to those detected by a thermal imager (passive detection), in particular at night when
visual sampling methods are inadequate. Finally, we used an RCH outfitted with a recording GPS
to confirm that the spatial coordinates generated by the avian radar’s DRP when tracking these
targets are accurate.
6.1.1.2 Provides Location Information Versus Time for Each Track [PA2.1]
Objective
Performance Criterion PA1.1, Provides Location Information Versus Time for Each Track, is a
primary quantitative criterion for demonstrating automatic tracking of birds using avian radar.
Whereas Criterion PA1.1 (Section 6.1.1.1) was designed to demonstrate that target echoes
generated by a radar scan could be detected and tracked in real time by the DRP, Criterion PA2.1
will demonstrate that the DRP can also extract and record essential measurement data about
those tracked targets; in particular, their spatial and temporal coordinates. The ability to gather
these measurement data in real time is the underlying motivation for the development of digital
avian radar systems and the data form the basis for most applications of avian radar technology.
Methods
The DRP continuously generates and records “plots and tracks” data as part of its normal
operations. Plots are detections above a background level the DRP has extracted from raw
digitized radar returns during a given scan of the radar. The DRP’s tracking algorithms form
tracks by associating plots from scan-to-scan as belonging to the same target.
Plots and/or tracks data are displayed on the DRP monitor and can be stored as files on a local
hard drive, on a network file server, or streamed to a Radar Data Server (RDS) and loaded in real
time as records in a relational database – or all three simultaneously. A DRP or an Accipiter
TrackViewer Workstation (TVW) can (re)play plots and/or tracks data from any of the above
sources and display them on the workstation monitor. The Accipiter® Track Data Viewer
(TDV) provides the user with a static display of tracks data is in a flat-file tabular format similar
to a spreadsheet.
The TDV has two track display formats: Master Record, which has one record for each target
track, and Detail Record, which has one record for each update (detection) of an individual
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