In the previous post, we began to build a theory of detection over time as the result of a very large number of independent glimpses. By assuming the environment to be fixed for awhile, we moved all the environmental factors into a constant (to be measured and tabulated), and simplified the function so it depended only on the range to the target.
In this post we simplify still further, introducing lateral range curves and the sweep width (also known as effective sweep width). We will follow Washburn's Search & Detection, Chapter 2. (So there's nothing new in this post. Just hopefully a clear and accessible presentation.)