Patent ID: 8138965

Claim:
A method for identifying the type of a boosting missile, said method comprising: receiving radar returns from a boosting missile to generate a plurality of position measurements constituting a target missile track; providing a plurality of nominal kinematic missile rocket parameters including at least nominal missile speed, altitude, and flight path angle, said nominal kinematic missile parameters defining templates for each of a plurality of missile types; applying each of said nominal kinematic missile rocket parameters for each missile of said plurality of missile types to a separate boost phase filter of a set of plural boost phase filters; applying said target missile track to each boost phase filter of said set of plural boost phase filters, to generate a plurality of state estimates, one from each filter; and providing the output of each of said boost phase filters to at least one computer processor, said at least one computer processor performing the steps of: processing an output of each of said boost phase filters with the nominal kinematic missile rocket parameters applied to the boost phase filter, to generate a maximum likelihood value for each filter parameter and filter output; and selecting as a correct missile type that missile type associated with the filter having the maximum likelihood value.