Application of neural networks to track association in over the horizon radar

Over The Horizon Radar (OTHR) uses the ionosphere layers in the sky as a reflection medium. Multiple ionospheric layers cause several tracks per target to be observed at the receiver. The objective of this research is to associate tracks which belong to the same target. We adopt a data fusion approach to track association which is based on knowledge of human perceptual grouping mechanism - Gestalt psychology. To facilitate the fusion of the tracks by using affinity information derived from human perceptual grouping principles we developed a clustering algorithm based on a refined self-organizing neural network. This network, which we call the dynamic clustering scheme, automatically controls the allocation of clusters in response to the novelty of each input.