US Patent 8378880 Explicit probabilistic target object selection and engagement

An object of interest in a cloud of objects is identified by RF and IR sensing. The RF and IR signals are separately discriminated to determine the probability that the RF tracked object is one of a predetermined number of possible object types, and the IR tracked object is one of the possible object types. Joint probabilities are calculated for all pairs of RF and IR signals and all objects, and the joint probabilities are normalized. Marginal probabilities of the joint RF/IR discrimination results are calculated to produce a vector set of marginal optical probabilities. The vector set is normalized over all object types to thereby produce a vector set of normalized marginal optical probabilities. The object of interest is selected to be the IR object of said vector set of normalized joint optical probabilities with the highest probability of being the object type of interest.