Boost-phase acceleration estimation

Characterizing the boost phase of a rocket's flight is challenging when only metric radar data (range and angles) are used. Incorporating range-acceleration measurements results in superior tracking performance and much improved characterization of boost-phase flight. This paper demonstrates how to estimate range acceleration reliably from the amplitude and phase of the target-reflected radar signal. Phase-derived range-acceleration estimates can be used to tune a tracking filter and can be incorporated into the filter for improved trajectory reconstruction. Range-acceleration measurements can also be used in a multitarget environment to identify boosting targets. These techniques have been used successfully on actual rocket-launch data to improve postmission tracking and object identification performance.