In
radar
Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance ('' ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, we ...
technology and similar fields, track-before-detect (TBD) is a concept according to which a signal is
tracked before declaring it a target. In this approach, the sensor data about a tentative target are integrated over time and may yield detection in cases when signals from any particular time instance are too weak against clutter (low
signal-to-noise ratio) to register a detected target.
[David L. Hall, James Llinas (2001) "Handbook of Multisensor Data Fusion",]
p. 10-30
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The TBD approach may be applied both for pure detection when the tentative target displays a very small amount of apparent motion, as well as for actual motion tracking. In the first case the problem is considerably simpler, both in terms of the amount of calculation and the complexity of algorithms.[L. C. Jain, N. S. Ichalkaranje, G. Tonfoni (Eds.) (2002) "Advances in Intelligent Systems for Defence"]
p. 394
/ref>
See also
* Track while scan The track while scan (TWS) is a mode of radar operation in which the radar allocates part of its power to tracking the target or targets while part of its power is allocated to scanning, unlike the straight tracking mode, when the radar directs all ...
* Vehicle tracking system
A vehicle tracking system combines the use of automatic vehicle location in individual vehicles with software that collects these fleet data for a comprehensive picture of vehicle locations. Modern vehicle tracking systems commonly use GPS or G ...
References
Radar signal processing
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