Exploiting target amplitude information to improve multi-target tracking

Lisa M. Ehrman; W. Dale Blair

doi:10.1117/12.665908

19 May 2006 Exploiting target amplitude information to improve multi-target tracking

Lisa M. Ehrman, W. Dale Blair

Proceedings Volume 6236, Signal and Data Processing of Small Targets 2006; 623618 (2006) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.665908
Event: Defense and Security Symposium, 2006, Orlando (Kissimmee), Florida, United States

Abstract

Closely-spaced (but resolved) targets pose a challenge for measurement-to-track data association algorithms. Since the Mahalanobis distances between measurements collected on closely-spaced targets and tracks are similar, several elements of the corresponding kinematic measurement-to-track cost matrix are also similar. Lacking any other information on which to base assignments, it is not surprising that data association algorithms make mistakes. One ad hoc approach for mitigating this problem is to multiply the kinematic measurement-to-track likelihoods by amplitude likelihoods. However, this can actually be detrimental to the measurement-to-track association process. With that in mind, this paper pursues a rigorous treatment of the hypothesis probabilities for kinematic measurements and features. Three simple scenarios are used to demonstrate the impact of basing data association decisions on these hypothesis probabilities for Rayleigh, fixed-amplitude, and Rician targets. The first scenario assumes that the tracker carries two tracks but only one measurement is collected. This provides insight into more complex scenarios in which there are fewer measurements than tracks. The second scenario includes two measurements and one track. This extends naturally to the case with more measurements than tracks. Two measurements and two tracks are present in the third scenario, which provides insight into the performance of this method when the number of measurements equals the number of tracks. In all cases, basing data association decisions on the hypothesis probabilities leads to good results.

Citation Download Citation

Lisa M. Ehrman and W. Dale Blair "Exploiting target amplitude information to improve multi-target tracking", Proc. SPIE 6236, Signal and Data Processing of Small Targets 2006, 623618 (19 May 2006); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.665908

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