Peter Swerling
Peter Swerling | |
|---|---|
| Born | March 4, 1929 New York City, U.S. |
| Died | August 25, 2000 (aged 71) California, U.S. |
| Alma mater | University of California, Los Angeles Cornell University California Institute of Technology |
| Known for | Swerling Target Models |
| Spouse |
Judith Ann Butler (m. 1958) |
| Children | 3 |
| Parent | Jo Swerling (father) |
| Relatives | Jo Swerling Jr. (brother) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Mathematics, Electronic engineering |
| Thesis | Families of Transformations in the Function Spaces Hp |
| Doctoral advisor | Angus Taylor |
Peter Swerling (March 4, 1929 – August 25, 2000) was one of the most influential radar theoreticians in the second half of the 20th century. He is best known for the class of statistically "fluctuating target" scattering models he developed at the RAND Corporation in the early 1950s to characterize the performance of pulsed radar systems, referred to as Swerling Targets I, II, III, and IV in the literature of radar. Swerling also contributed to the optimal estimation of orbits of satellites and trajectories of missiles, anticipating the development of the Kalman filter. He also founded two companies, one of which continues his engineering work today.