Peter Swerling

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.

Biography

Early life and family Peter Swerling was born in New York City on 4 March 1929 to Jo Swerling and Florence (née Manson) Swerling. Peter had a younger brother, Jo Jr. and investigated families of bounded linear transformations in Banach spaces.

Career While still in graduate school, Swerling worked full-time for Douglas Aircraft Company as a staff member of the newly formed Project RAND. Swerling was named a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 1968 "for contributions to signal theory as applied to errors in tracking and trajectory prediction of missiles by radar;" he was recognized as a Life Fellow in 1994. Technology Service Corporation recognizes its founder by granting the Peter Swerling Award for Entrepreneurial Excellence to select employees who have made significant contributions to the growth and success of the company.

Reviewing Swerling's impact, Solomon W. Golomb wrote that he was "probably the most influential radar theoretician of the second half of the 20th century, not only in the United States, but in the entire world."

Selected publications

Originally published 17 March 1954 as RAND Research Memorandum RM-1217.