Joint IMM/MHT tracking and identification with application to ground tracking
J. Lancaster, Samuel S. Blackman, E. Taniguchi · Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE · 2005
It is widely accepted that feature data will be necessary in order to aid the data association for ground target tracking systems that are required to maintain continuous tracks on important targets. It is also recognized that target behavior as determined by a tracking system can aid target type identification. Thus, noting that the tracking and ID functions are complementary, a joint tracking and identification architecture has been developed. These methods are being tested using simulated dynamic ground targets and radar High Range Resolution (HRR) data provided by the Moving and Stationary Target Acquisition and Recognition (MSTAR) project. The paper begins by giving an overview of the IMM/MHT tracker that has been designed to handle the unique characteristics (such as on-off road behavior) of the ground target tracking problem. Then, a joint tracking identification methodology is described. Implementing this approach, target behavior (such as being part of a group, speed, and on/off road motion) can be used both in the data association and for target type information. A Dempster-Shafer method is used for combining all classification-related data. The track score, incorporated in all MHT data association decisions, is augmented with a feature-related term derived from the conflict term computed from an application of Dempster's Rule. Finally, the paper illustrates the proposed methods using results from a detailed simulation of target convoys that perform on and off road maneuvers. Results using MSTAR HRR data are presented for both Signature-Aided (SAT) and Classification-Aided (CAT) approaches to feature-aided tracking.