Unified measures of target detection system performance evaluation

This research compares alternative performance metrics to those more commonly used in target detection system performance evaluation. The alternative performance metrics examined here include the Fisher ratio, a modification of the Dice similarity coefficient, and the Youden index. These metrics are compared to metrics that have been previously introduced for such target detection system performance evaluation: the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve (and the related summary area under the ROC curve (AUC) value), and the confidence error generation (CEG) curve (and the related summary root square deviation (RSD) value). The ROC curve is a discrimination metric that measures the ability of a target detection system to distinguish between target and non-target. The CEG curve quantifies detection system knowledge of its own performance. An approach is presented that combines such metrics; this combination may be dynamically adjusted and updated based on current and future evaluation requirements for particular target detection systems.