Architectures and algorithms for track association and fusion

Target tracking using multiple sensors can provide better performance than using a single sensor. One approach to multiple target tracking with multiple sensors is to first perform single sensor tracking and then fuse the tracks from the different sensors. Two processing architectures for track fusion are presented: sensor to sensor track fusion, and sensor to system track fusion. Technical issues related to the statistical correlation between track estimation errors are discussed. Approaches for associating the tracks and combining the track state estimates of associated tracks that account for this correlation are described and compared by both theoretical analysis and Monte Carlo simulations     

Road-map assisted ground moving target tracking

Tracking ground targets with airborne GMTI (ground moving target indicator) sensor measurements proves to be a challenging task due to high target density, high clutter, and low visibility. The exploitation of nonstandard background information such as road maps and terrain information is therefore highly desirable for the enhancement of track quality and track continuity. The present paper presents a Bayesian approach to incorporate such information consistently. It is particularly suited to deal with winding roads and networks of roads. The target dynamics is modeled in quasi one-dimensional road coordinates and mapped onto ground coordinates using linear road segments taking road map errors into account. The case of several intersecting roads with different characteristics, such as mean curvature, slope, or visibility, is treated within an interacting multiple model (IMM) scheme. Targets can be masked both by the clutter notch of the sensor and by terrain obstacles. Both effects are modeled using a sensor-target state dependent detection probability. The iterative filter equations are formulated within a framework of Gaussian sum approximations on the one hand and a particle filter approach on the other hand. Simulation results for single targets taken from a realistic ground scenario show strongly reduced target location errors compared with the case of neglecting road-map information. By modeling the clutter notch of the GMTI sensor, early detection of stopping targets is demonstrated     

Sensor fusion for intelligent alarm analysis

The purpose of an intelligent alarm analysis system is to provide complete and manageable information to a central alarm station operator by applying alarm processing and fusion techniques to sensor information. This paper discusses the sensor fusion approach taken to perform intelligent alarm analysis for the Advanced Exterior Sensor (AES). The AES is an intrusion detection and assessment system designed for wide-area coverage, quick deployment, low false/nuisance alarm operation, and immediate visual assessment. It combines three sensor technologies (visible, infrared, and millimeter wave radar) collocated on a compact and portable remote sensor module. The remote sensor module rotates at a rate of 1 revolution per second to detect and track motion and provide assessment in a continuous 360° field-of-regard. Sensor fusion techniques are used to correlate and integrate the track data from these three sensors into a single track for operator observation. Additional inputs to the fusion process include environmental data, knowledge of sensor performance under certain weather conditions, sensor priority, and recent operator feedback. A confidence value is assigned to the track as a result of the fusion process. This helps to reduce nuisance alarms and to increase operator confidence in the system while reducing the workload of the operator     

Use of map information for tracking targets on airport surface

A generic and novel approach for integrating airport map information with sensor measurements in the track estimation process is proposed and evaluated. The surface restrictions imposed by the network of roads, taxiways, and runways, represented by a simplified geometric model, are included in both the target observation and the dynamic models, to derive the target state estimates. The performance of the methods proposed is illustrated in representative airport surface scenarios, taking as a reference for comparison other tracking alternatives such as VS-IMM (variable structure interacting multiple model estimator) ground target tracking, or standard ones that do not make use of ground information.     

Multisensor covariance control strategies for reducing bias effects in interacting target scenarios

Algorithms are presented for managing sensor information to reduce the effects of bias when tracking interacting targets. When targets are close enough together that their measurement validation gates overlap, the measurement from one target can be confused with another. Data association algorithms such as the joint probabilistic data association (JPDA) algorithm can effectively continue to track targets under these conditions, but the target estimates may become biased. A modification of the covariance control approach for sensor management can reduce this effect. Sensors are chosen based on their ability to reduce the extent of measurement gate overlap as judged by a set of heuristic parameters derived in this work. Monte Carlo simulation results show that these are effective methods of reducing target estimate bias in the JPDA algorithm when targets are close together. An analysis of the computational demands of these algorithms shows that while they are computationally demanding, they are not prohibitively so.     

Tracking with classification-aided multiframe data association

In most conventional tracking systems, only the target kinematic information from, for example, a radar or sonar or an electro-optical sensor, is used in measurement-to-track association. Target class information, which is typically used in postprocessing, can also be used to improve data association to give better tracking accuracy. The use of target class information in data association can improve discrimination by yielding purer tracks and preserving their continuity. In this paper, we present the simultaneous use of target classification information and target kinematic information for target tracking. The approach presented integrates target class information into the data association process using the 2-D (one track list and one measurement list) as well as multiframe (one track list and multiple measurement lists) assignments. The multiframe association likelihood is developed to include the classification results based on the "confusion matrix" that specifies the accuracy of the target classifier. The objective is to improve association results using class information when the kinematic likelihoods are similar for different targets, i.e., there is ambiguity in using kinematic information alone. Performance comparisons with and without the use of class information in data association are presented on a ground target tracking problem. Simulation results quantify the benefits of classification-aided data association for improved target tracking, especially in the presence of association uncertainty in the kinematic measurements. Also, the benefit of 5-D (or multiframe) association versus 2-D association is investigated for different quality classifiers. The main contribution of this paper is the development of the methodology to incorporate exactly the classification information into multidimensional (multiframe) association.     

Adaptive Phased-Array Tracking in ECM using Negative Information

Target tracking with adaptive phased-array radars in the presence of standoff jamming presents both challenges and opportunities to the track filter designer. A measurement likelihood function is derived for this situation which accounts for the effect of both positive and negative contact information. This likelihood function is approximated a? a weighted sum of Gaussian terms consisting of both positive and negative weights, accounting for the positive and negative contact information. Additionally, recent theoretical results have been reported which have derived an accurate measurement error covariance in the vicinity of the jammer when adaptive beamforming is used by the radar to null the effects of the jammer. We compare the impact of using a likelihood function that accounts for negative contact information and the corrected measurement error covariance by comparing five Kalman filter-based trackers in five different scenarios. We show that only those track filters which use both the negative contact information and the corrected measurement error covariance are effective in maintaining track on a maneuvering target as it passes through the jamming region. This approach can also be generalized to any target tracking problem where the sensor response is anisotropic.     

Multisensor resource deployment using posterior Cramer-Rao bounds

The development of a general framework for the systematic management of multiple sensors in target tracking in the presence of clutter is described. The basis of the technique is to quantify, and subsequently control, the accuracy of target state estimation. The posterior Cramer-Rao lower bound (PCRLB) provides the means of achieving this aim by enabling us to determine a bound on the performance of all unbiased estimators of the unknown target state. The general approach is then to use optimization techniques to control the measurement process in order to achieve accurate target state estimation. We are concerned primarily with the deployment and utilization of limited sensor resources. We also allow for measurement origin uncertainty, with sensor measurements either target-generated or false alarms. An example in which the aim is to track a submarine by deploying a series of constant false-alarm rate passive sonobuoys is presented. We show that by making some standard assumptions, the effect of the measurement origin uncertainty can be expressed as a state-dependent information reduction factor which can be calculated off-line. This enables the Fisher information matrix (FIM) to be calculated quickly, allowing Cramer-Rao bounds to be utilized for real-time, dynamic sensor management. The sensor management framework is shown to determine deployment strategies that enable the target to be accurately localized, and at the same time efficiently utilize the limited sensor resources.     

Information space of sensor networks: Lagrangian,energy-momentum tensor,and applications

It is a challenge to investigate the interrelationship between the geometric structure and performance of sensor networks due to the increasingly complex and diverse architecture of them. This paper presents two new formulations for the information space of sensor networks, including Lagrangian and energy–momentum tensor, which are expected to integrate sensor networks target tracking and performance evaluation from a unified perspective. The proposed method presents two geometric objects to represent the dynamic state and manifold structure of the information space of sensor networks. Based on that, the authors conduct the property analysis and target tracking of sensor networks. To the best of our knowledge, it is the first time to investigate and analyze the information energy–momentum tensor of sensor networks and evaluate the performance of sensor networks in the context of target tracking. Simulations and examples confirm the competitive performance of the proposed method.     

Relative targeting architectures for captive-carry HIL missilesimulator experiments

Captive-carry electronic warfare (EW) tests evaluate the response of hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) missile seekers to an actual environment (test-range) including the presence of electronic attack. This paper describes a relative targeting architecture that displays the test-range results in geodetic coordinates using only the sensors available on board the captive-carry platform (GPS, INS, seekers). To derive the target position in geodetic coordinates, a lever-arm correction process is described that determines the position of each seeker and the corresponding pitch and yaw of the simulator. Combining the positional parameters of the seeker with its targeting variables, the seeker track point is displayed in geodetic coordinates, A track tagging algorithm is presented to identify the true target from the EW disruption using the drift angle from the inertial navigation system (INS), To eliminate the scintillation noise present in the track image, a Kalman filter in sensor coordinates is applied to the targeting variables allowing optimization of the track tagging. Experimental results from a recent EW field test using antiship cruise missile simulators are shown to demonstrate the feasibility of the approach for determining EW effectiveness in near real-time. Targeting accuracy is also quantified by comparing the derived target position with the true Global Positioning System (GPS) test-range position of the ship in the absence of electronic attack     

Recursive temporal-spatial information fusion with applications totarget identification

Centralized/distributed recursive algorithms for temporal-spatial information integration using the Dempster-Shafer technique are developed. Compared with the Bayesian approach, the Dempster-Shafer technique has the strong capability of handling information uncertainties, which are particularly desirable in many applications. In the centralized integration algorithm, all information is pooled into the central processor and integrated. In contrast, the distributed integration algorithm shares the computational burden among the local processors, which increases the computational efficiency. The developed algorithms are effectively applied to a target identification problem with three sensors: identification of friend-foe-neutral (IFFN), electronic support measurement (ESM), and infrared search and track (IRST)     

基于序贯关联算法的多目标无源跟踪

基于序贯关联算法,对多目标无源跟踪问题进行了研究。在只有角度信息可以利用的情况下,首先,利用波门技术对各个无源传感器角度测量数据进行关联和滤波,形成参数航迹;然后,将各个无源传感器的参数航迹送到融合中心进行关联配对,并在关联过程中通过构造关联质量函数对参数航迹的关联历史情况进行度量,解决参数航迹关联模糊问题;最后,通过对关联成功的参数航迹进行交叉定位,给出多个不同目标的位置信息,实现分布式无源系统对多目标的数据关联和跟踪,并通过仿真分析,对算法的有效性和可行性进行验证。     

Performance evaluation of track fusion with information matrixfilter

In a multisensor environment, each sensor detects multiple targets and creates corresponding tracks. Fusion of tracks from these, possibly dissimilar, sensors yields more accurate kinematic and attribute information regarding the target. Two methodologies have been employed for such purpose, which are: measurement fusion and state vector fusion. It is well known that the measurement fusion approach is optimal but computationally inefficient and the state vector fusion algorithms are more efficient but suboptimal, in general. This is so because the state vector estimates to be fused obtained from two sensors, are not conditionally independent in general due to the common process noise from the target being tracked. It is to be noted that there are three approaches to state vector fusion, which are: weighted covariance, information matrix, and pseudomeasurement. This research is restricted solely to performance evaluation of the information matrix form of state vector fusion. Closed-form analytical solution of steady state fused covariance has been derived as a measure of performance using this approach. Note that the results are derived under the assumptions that the two sensors are synchronized and no misassociation or merged measurement is considered in the study. Results are compared with those using Monte Carlo simulation, which was used in the past to predict fusion system performance by various authors. These results provide additional insight into the mechanism of track fusion and greatly simplify evaluation of fusion performance. In addition, availability of such a solution facilitates the trade-off studies for designing fusion systems under various operating conditions     

A Self-organizing Bearings-only Target Tracking Algorithm in Wireless Sensor Network

In the bearings-only target tracking, wireless sensor network (WSN) collects observations of the target direction at various nodes and uses an adaptive filter to combine them for target tracking. An efficient network management is necessary to gain an optimal tradeoff between locating accuracy and energy consumption. This article proposes a self-organizing target tracking algorithm to select the most beneficial subset of nodes to track the target at every snapshot. Compared with traditional methods, this scheme avoids the need for keeping global position information of the network as in greedy selection. Each node judges its future usefulness depending on the knowledge of its own position and using simple mathematics computation. Simulations indicate that this scheme has locating accuracy comparable to the global greedy algorithm. Also, it has good robustness against node failure and autonomous adaptability to the change of the network scale. Furthermore, this algorithm consumes limited energy because only a portion of nodes partakes in the selection at every snapshot.     

基于点集合并的修正Hough变换TBD算法

在低信噪比条件下,基于Hough变换的检测前跟踪算法是进行强杂波背景下目标航迹检测的一种手段。本文针对Hough变换后一个目标产生多条可能航迹以及航迹内可能存在杂波点的问题,提出了一种基于能量最大点和点集合并的修正Hough变换检测前跟踪算法。该算法利用量测点时序、能量信息及目标速度先验信息对Hough变换后点迹进行关联和剔除,能够有效的对目标原始航迹进行回溯。针对高斯噪声背景下的飞行目标,仿真结果表明该算法能够对微弱目标进行有效检测,在目标数目、杂波密度、信噪比发生变化的条件下仍能保持较高的检测概率。     

Target tracking using infrared measurements and laser illumination

A missile target tracker is designed using a filter/correlator (with adaptive target shape identification) based on forward-looking infrared (FLIR) sensor measurements to track the center-of-intensity of the hardbody/plume combination, and another filter using Doppler and/or speckle information in the return from a low-power laser illuminator to estimate the offset between the intensity centroid and the hardbody center-of-mass. The Doppler information is shown to yield smaller bias and error variance from the tracker than the speckle information. Performance of trackers based on just Doppler or both Doppler and speckle information from the laser return is portrayed as a function of important parameters in the tracking environment     

Remote data sensing using SAR and harmonic reradiators

In sensor networks distributed over large areas, communication by means of active transmitters on sensor nodes is inherently energy expensive and poses a significant bottleneck to achieve a long battery life. We propose modulated reradiation of radar illumination as a means to transmit information from a group of sensors to an airborne radar. This puts the communications energy burden on the radar transmitter rather than on the sensor nodes, thus increasing their battery lifetimes. To distinguish the sensor return from the clutter return, the modulation on the sensors is done by switching a nonlinear load on the sensor antenna and processing the harmonic reradiation. We present techniques to transmit information from the sensors, which use stripmap mode synthetic aperture radar (SAR) ideas to decode the information and to simultaneously obtain a geographic map of the sensor locations.     

Local node selection for localization in a distributed sensor network

This paper discusses a new localized resource manager for a wireless sensor network of bearings-only sensors. Specifically, each node uses knowledge of the target under surveillance to determine whether it should actively collect measurements and how far to disseminate the data in order for the sensor network to maintain track of the target. At each node, the resource manager requires only knowledge of the relative location to the target for itself and the active nodes from the previous snapshot. The decentralized strategy represents a modification to the global node selection (GNS) method that exploits knowledge of the location of all nodes in the network. Simulations show that despite the lack of global network knowledge, the new localized management method is almost as effective as GNS in terms of balancing the tradeoff between energy usage and localization accuracy.     

基于OSPA距离的航迹关联方法

 提出一种基于最优次模式分配(OSPA)距离的多传感器航迹关联方法,把每一个局部传感器航迹看做一个航迹集合,通过OSPA距离度量各个航迹集合之间的距离,具有最短OSPA距离的航迹属于同一个目标航迹;针对航迹关联实时性的要求,进一步给出具有滑窗的航迹OSPA递推方法。最终结果表明,本文方法不仅可以有效保持航迹的历史信息和几何特征信息,而且可以有效地关联航迹交叉、航迹分叉和航迹异步等问题。通过与加权关联方法、独立序贯方法的仿真比较,证明其在关联精度、异步等几个方面具有比较好的优势。     

New assignment-based data association for tracking move-stop-move targets

We present a new assignment-based algorithm for data association in tracking ground targets employing evasive move-stop-move maneuvers using ground moving target indicator (GMTI) reports obtained from an airborne sensor. To avoid detection by the GMTI sensor, the targets deliberately stop for some time before moving again. The sensor does not detect a target when the latter's radial velocity (along the line-of-sight from the sensor) falls below a certain minimum detectable velocity (MDV). Even in the absence of move-stop-move maneuvers, the detection has a less-than-unity probability (P/sub D/<1) due to obscuration and thresholding. Then, it is of interest, when a target is not detected, to develop a systematic technique that can distinguish between lack of detection due to P/sub D/<1 and lack of detection due to a stop (or a near stop). Previously, this problem was solved using a variable structure interacting multiple model (VS-IMM) estimator with a stopped target model (VS-IMM-ST) without explicitly addressing data association. We develop a novel "two-dummy" assignment approach for move-stop-move targets that considers both the problem of data association as well as filtering. Typically, in assignment-based data association a "dummy" measurement is used to denote the nondetection event. The use of the standard single-dummy assignment, which does not handle move-stop-move motion explicitly, can result in broken tracks. The new algorithm proposed here handles the evasive move-stop-move motion by introducing a second dummy measurement to represent nondetection due to the MDV. We also present a likelihood-ratio-based track deletion scheme for move-stop-move targets. Using this two-dummy data association algorithm, the track corresponding to a move-stop-move target is kept "alive' during missed detections both due to MDV and due to P/sub D/<1. In addition, one can obtain reductions in both rms estimation errors as well as the total number of track breakages.