Distributed multi-target tracking in clutter for passive linear array sonar systems
Qian Zhang, Yifan Xie, Taek Lyul Song · 2017
In a Y-shaped passive linear array sonar (PLAS) system, three sensor legs are configured and report bearings-only measurements, which are complicated due to bearing-ambiguity. As many ghost targets exist, multi-target tracking using a PLAS system is a challenging problem, especially when target miss-detection and clutter are also considered. In this paper, a distributed method is proposed to track multi-target using the Y-shaped PLAS system. In centralized method, the measurements generated by each PLAS are directly sent to the fusion center (FC), a large amount of communication resource would be consumed, especially when clutter measurements are considered. For this case, reducing communication burden is prerequisite and a distributed target tracking method is sought. In the distributed method, to reduce the numbers of false tracks and ghost tracks, the original bearings-only measurements are first tracked without considering bearings-ambiguity at each local PLAS using linear multi-target integrated probabilistic data association (LM-IPDA) tracker, which can handle false track discrimination (FTD). Then, the estimated bearings-only measurements from each local tracker are transmitted to the FC where multiple targets are tracked using the sequential LM-IPDA while considering the bearing-ambiguity problem. Compared with the centralized method, the distributed method saves communication resources and reduces computational loads. Furthermore the distributed method can also obtain a relative high tracking accuracy.