Trellis Decoding And Applications To Multi-Target Tracking
Jack Keil Wolf, Audrey M. Viterbi, Glenn S. Dixon · Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE · 1988
In this paper we give a solution to the problems of finding the best set of K completely unmerged paths through a trellis with Mi≥K states at depth i in the trellis, i = 0, 1, 2, ..., N. Here, "best set" means that the sum of the metrics of all K paths in the set is minimized and "completely unmerged" means that no two paths pass through a common state. The solution involves using the Viterbi algorithm on (an expanded trellis with {Mi/k} states at depth i. We then apply this result to optimally separate the tracks of K targets in a multi-target radar system with measurement errors and extraneous measurements.