Accurate three-dimensional tracking method in bistatic forward scatter radar

Accurate three-dimensional (3D) tracking in bistatic forward scatter radar (BFSR) is a challenging problem because of absent range resolution and poor measurements. In this article, an accurate 3D tracking method of BFSR is proposed. Aiming to overcome the filter divergence caused by large initial state estimation error, firstly, an accurate initial state estimation approach is presented based on analytic derivation and Levenberg–Marquardt algorithm, which has the potential to improve the accuracy of initial state estimation. Furthermore, in order to reduce the computation cost of filtering process and speed up the filtering convergence rate, the accurate initial state estimation and extended Kalman filter algorithm in BFSR are combined to achieve a precise target 3D tracking. Finally, the proposed accurate tracking method is verified through comparative analysis of the simulation results.