Circular Error Probable and an Example with Multilevel Effects
Jacob Warren is the Assistant Scientific Advisor for the Marine Corps Operational Test and Evaluation Activity (MCOTEA). He was worked for MCOTEA since 2011 starting as a statistician before moving into his current role. Mr. Warren has a Master of Science degree in Applied Statistics from the Rochester Institute of Technology.
Circular Error Probable (CEP) is a measure of a weapon system’s precision developed based on the Bivariate Normal Distribution. Failing to understanding the theory behind CEP can result in misuse of equations developed to help estimation. Estimation of CEP is also much more straightforward given situations such as single samples where factors are not being manipulated. This brief aims to help build a theoretical understanding of CEP, and then presents a non-trivial example in which CEP is estimated via multilevel regression. The goal is to help build an understanding of CEP so it can be properly estimated in trivial (single sample) and non-trivial cases (e.g. regression and multilevel regression).