Maximum likelihood estimate of target angles for a conical scan tracking system in the presence of speckle.

The equation for the maximum likelihood estimate of target angle is derived for a conical scan tracking system when the target produces speckle and Gaussian noise is present. Operation with a direct detection receiver is assumed with the average photon flux large enough so that the discrete nature of photoelectric events may be ignored. For large average SNRs, the estimate is shown to be unbiased and the variance of the estimate limited by both the average SNR and the number of degrees of freedom of the detected field.