Evaluation of IMM filtering for an air defense system application
Melanie Busch, Samuel S. Blackman · Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE · 1995
This paper discusses the potential application of Interacting Multiple Model (IMM) filtering to the multi-radar Air Defense System application. This application includes a wide variety of potential target and radar characteristics. The paper begins with a discussion of the three IMM filter models that have been chosen and the choice of Markov transition matrix under the condition of variable update rate filtering. A comparison is given of the track prediction performance of the IMM method with that of a single model filtering system that uses maneuver detection for gain and covariance adjustment. Results show the IMM approach to be uniformly better than a conventional filter that has been designed for the Air Defense System application. However, the relative improvement of the IMM approach is a strong function of the quality of the radar measurement data. Since data association is a key tracking issue, IMM filtering will be adapted for use as part of a Multiple Hypothesis Tracking System. For this purpose, IMM gating and track scoring expressions are discussed and the methods validated through simulation.