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     

复杂城市环境下GNSS/INS轻轨轨道中线精密测量方法CSCD

在城市轻轨线路的中线精密测量中,传统的基于GNSS的测量方式往往受高楼、站台、上跨桥及声屏障等复杂环境信号遮挡影响,甚至无法接收到GNSS信号,难以得到满足精度要求的轨道中线坐标;而基于全站仪的测量方式需建立轨道控制网,作业效率低下。为了满足城市轻轨中线精密测量高精度和高效率的需求,采用GNSS/INS轨道中线精密测量方法,基于Kalman滤波将惯导、GNSS数据进行融合,并根据轨道检测仪在轨道上不发生垂向和侧向运动的特点,采用运动约束算法,以提升组合导航系统测量精度。同时设计了基于新息滤波的抗差检测,以剔除定位质量差的GNSS数据。通过将里程计比例因子误差增广到状态向量的方式进行参数估计,以减小里程计测量误差。通过集成惯导、GNSS、里程计等传感器的轨检小车,采集城市轻轨轨道测量数据。经数据处理和对比分析,在GNSS信号较差的复杂场景下能够得到厘米级的轻轨轨道中线坐标,且测量效率大大提升。     

基于区实混合序列相似度的异步不等速率航迹关联算法

在分布式多目标跟踪系统中,由于局部传感器开机时间、采样频率以及通信延迟不同等原因,导致来自各传感器的局部航迹往往是异步不等速率的。目前一般的方法是先进行时域配准再进行航迹关联,但是在同步化的过程中,航迹估计值的误差会发生传播,影响航迹关联的性能。针对此问题,提出了一种基于区实混合序列相似度的异步不等速率航迹关联算法。算法首先通过区间数-实数混合序列变换(IRST)得到等长度的航迹行为序列,然后定义一种新的序列差异信息度量,得到混合序列的相似度,以此进行航迹关联判定。仿真实验表明,该算法可以有效地解决异步不等速率航迹关联问题,并且通信延迟和数据乱序对算法性能的影响不明显。     

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     

A multi-rate sensor fusion approach using information filters for estimating aero-engine performance degradation

Gas-path performance estimation plays an important role in aero-engine health management, and Kalman Filter(KF) is a well-known technique to estimate performance degradation. In previous studies, it is assumed that different kinds of sensors are with the same sampling rate, and they are used for state estimation by the KF simultaneously. However, it is hard to achieve state estimation using various kinds of sensor measurements at the same sampling rate due to a complex network and physical characteristic differences between sensors, especially in an advanced multisensor architecture. For this purpose, a multi-rate sensor fusion using the information filtering approach is proposed based on the square-root cubature rule, which is called Multi-rate Squareroot Cubature Information Filter(MSCIF) to track engine performance degradation. Soft measurement synchronization of the MSCIF is designed to provide a sensor fusion condition for multiple sampling rates of measurement, and a fault sensor is isolated by maximum likelihood validation before state estimation. The contribution of this paper is to supply a novel multi-rate informationfilter approach for sensor fault tolerant health estimation of an aero-engine in a multi-sensor system. Tests are conducted for aero-engine performance degradation estimation with multiple sampling rates of sensor measurement on both digital simulation and semi-physical experiment.Experimental results illustrate the superiority of the proposed algorithm in terms of degradation estimation accuracy and robustness to sensor failure in a multi-sensor system.     

Radar Measurement Noise Variance Estimation with Several Targets of Opportunity

A number of methods exist to track a target's uncertain motion through space using inherently inaccurate sensor measurements. A powerful method of adaptive estimation is the interacting multiple model (IMM) estimator. In order to carry out state estimation from the noisy measurements of a sensor, however, the filter should have knowledge of the statistical characteristics of the noise associated with that sensor. The statistical characteristics (accuracies) of real sensors, however, are not always available, in particular for legacy sensors. A method is presented of determining the measurement noise variances of a sensor, assumed to be constant, by using multiple IMM estimators while tracking targets whose motion is not known---targets of opportunity. Combining techniques outlined in [2] and [6], the likelihood functions are obtained for a number of IMM estimators, each with different assumptions on the measurement noise variances. Then a search is carried out over a varying grid of IMMs to bracket the variances of the sensor measurement noises. The end result consists of estimates of the measurement noise variances of the sensor in question.     

The modeling and estimation of asynchronous multirate multisensor dynamic systems

An asynchronous data fusion problem based on a kind of multirate multisensor dynamic system is studied. The system is observed by multirate sensors independently, with the state model known at the finest scale. Under the assumption that the sampling rates of sensors decrease successively by any positive integers, the discrete dynamic system models are established based on each single sensor and an asynchronous multirate multisensor state fusion estimation algorithm is presented. Theoretically, the estimate is proven to be unbiased and the optimal in the sense of linear minimum covariance, the fused estimate is better than the Kalman filtering results based on each single sensor, and the accuracy of the fused estimate will decrease if any of the sensors' information is neglected. The feasibility and effectiveness of the algorithm are shown through simulations.     

Optimal Decision Fusion in Multiple Sensor Systems

The problem of optimal data fusion in the sense of the Neyman-pearson (N-P) test in a centralized fusion center is considered. The fusion center receives data from various distributed sensors. Each sensor implements a N-P test individually and independently of the other sensors. Due to limitations in channel capacity, the sensors transmit their decision instead of raw data. In addition to their decisions, the sensors may transmit one or more bits of quality information. The optimal, in the N-P sense, decision scheme at the fusion center is derived and it is seen that an improvement in the performance of the system beyond that of the most reliable sensor is feasible, even without quality information, for a system of three or more sensors. If quality information bits are also available at the fusion center, the performance of the distributed decision scheme is comparable to that of the centralized N-P test. Several examples are provided and an algorithm for adjusting the threshold level at the fusion center is provided.     

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     

Wireless sensor networks: scheduling for measurement and data reporting

An optimal load allocation approach is presented for measurement and data reporting in wireless sensor networks with a single level tree network topology. The measurement problem investigated involves a measurement space, part of which can be sampled by each sensor. We seek to optimally assign sensors part of the measurement space to minimize reporting time and energy usage. Three representative measurement and reporting strategies are studied. This work is novel as it considers, for the first time, the measurement capacity of processors and assumes negligible computation time which is radically different from the traditional divisible load scheduling research to date. Aerospace applications include satellite remote sensing and monitoring and sensor networks deployed and monitored from the air.     

多传感器融合目标跟踪

分析了基于成象和雷达两种传感器对目标状态的测量模型及其融合模型。针对两种传感器之间测量信息的不同步问题,给出了一种基于最小二乘法的不同步信息之间的时间配准和融合方法,并设计了跟踪滤波器。     

Passive tracking scheme for a single stationary observer

While there are many techniques for bearings-only tracking (BOT) in the ocean environment, they do not apply directly to the land situation. Generally, for tactical reasons, the land observer platform is stationary; but, it has two sensors, visible and infrared, for measuring bearings and a laser range finder (LRF) for measuring range. There is a requirement to develop a new BOT data fusion scheme that fuses the two sets of bearing readings, and together with a single LRF measurement, produces a unique track. This paper first develops a parameterized solution for the target speeds, and then heading, prior to the occurrence of the LRF measurement, when the track is unobservable. At, and after the LRF measurement, a BOT, formulated as a least squares (LS) estimator, then produces a unique LS estimate of the target states. Bearing readings from the other sensor serve as instrumental variables in a data fusion setting to eliminate the bias in the BOT estimator. The result is an unbiased and decentralized data fusion scheme. Results from two simulation experiments have corroborated the theoretical development and show also that the scheme is optimal.     

Distributed state estimation for heterogeneous mobile sensor networks with stochastic observation loss

The problem of distributed fusion and random observation loss for mobile sensor networks is investigated herein. In view of the fact that the measured values, sampling frequency and noise of various sensors are different, the observation model of a heterogeneous network is constructed. A binary random variable is introduced to describe the drop of observation component and the topology switching problem caused by complete observation loss is also considered. A cubature information filtering algo...     

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。     

A Fault-Tolerant Multisensor Navigation System Design

The problem of soft-failure tolerant estimation in navigationsystems composed of multiple inertial measurement clusters and oneor more reference sensors is addressed. A new approach ispresented that achieves containment of failed sensor data, andisolates the historic good data provided by the unfailed sensors.Multiple (local) estimates are computed where the estimates areconditioned on different subsets of the sensors. A statistical overlaptest is used to determine the validity of the local estimates, and afailed sensor can be identified from analysis of the invalid localestimates. After the time of detection the most accurate estimatebased on all but the failed sensor is identified. The results areapplied to a dual-inertial/Doppler radar navigation system andsimulation results are presented.     

Tracking with distributed sets of proximity sensors using geometric invariants

We propose a new approach to forming an estimate of a target track in a distributed sensor system using very limited sensor information. This approach uses a central fusion system that collects only the peak energy information from each sensor and assumes that the energy attenuates as a power law in range from the source. A geometrical invariance property of the proximity of the distributed sensors relative to a target track is used to generate potential target track paths. Numerical simulation examples are presented to illustrate the practicality of the technique.     

高温耐辐照声发射传感器

研制了一种新的耐高温抗辐照声发射传感器,并讨论了传感器制作工艺上的特点和优点。在经受400℃和2.4×10~6GYγ辐照的考验后,传感器仍保持性能稳定。     

基于不确定传感器状态的机载系统多层故障诊断方法

准确的机载系统故障诊断是保证飞机安全飞行和实现经济效益最大化的重要途径。然而传感器受到内外部环境条件的影响而不可避免的存在检测状态的不确定性,因此基于单个传感器或局部区域传感器综合检测结果的方法难以完全保证故障诊断的有效性和正确性。针对飞机机载系统的结构和工作原理,充分利用系统中不同层级、不同区域传感器检测特征之间的关联关系,考虑单个传感器本身存在的不确定性,构建了传感器信息前向融合与反向校验相结合的分层诊断决策方法,实现了对系统状态和传感器状态的双重估计与更新,克服了单一传感器故障对系统诊断推理准确度的影响。该方法较传统故障诊断模型,不再依赖某一个或某一类传感器信息的绝对可靠,在实现系统级的准确故障诊断同时,还能判断具体某一传感器本身是否发生虚拟警。在飞机液压系统故障诊断案例中,新方法成功将系统故障诊断的虚警率降低了96%,传感器的不确定度降低了84%。     

Efficient multisensor fusion using multidimensional dataassociation

We present the development of a multisensor fusion algorithm using multidimensional data association for multitarget tracking. The work is motivated by a large scale surveillance problem, where observations from multiple asynchronous sensors with time-varying sampling intervals (electronically scanned array (ESA) radars) are used for centralized fusion. The combination of multisensor fusion with multidimensional assignment is done so as to maximize the “time-depth” in addition to “sensor-width” for the number S of lists handled by the assignment algorithm. The standard procedure, which associates measurements from the most recently arrived S-1 frames to established tracks, can have, in the case of S sensors, a time-depth of zero. A new technique, which guarantees maximum effectiveness for an S-dimensional data association (S⩾3), i.e., maximum time-depth (S-1) for each sensor without sacrificing the fusion across sensors, is presented. Using a sliding window technique (of length S), the estimates are updated after each frame of measurements. The algorithm provides a systematic approach to automatic track formation, maintenance, and termination for multitarget tracking using multisensor fusion with multidimensional assignment for data association. Estimation results are presented for simulated data for a large scale air-to-ground target tracking problem     

Track monitoring when tracking with multiple 2D passive sensors

A fast method of track monitoring is presented which determines what tracks are good and what tracks have had data association problems and should be eliminated. The philosophy of tracking in a dense target environment with limited central processing unit (CPU) time is to acquire the targets, track them with as simple a filter as will meet requirements, and monitor the tracks to determine if they are still tracking a target or are tracking incorrect returns and should be terminated. After termination the true targets are reacquired. However, it is difficult to determine from simple track monitoring the correct interpretation of a poor track. Poor tracks can be a result of a sensor failure, target maneuver, or incorrect data association. The author describes track monitoring and provides a solution to this dilemma when tracking with multiple two-dimensional passive sensors. The method is much faster than other monitoring methods.<>