Track Initiation for Maritime Radar Tracking with and without Prior Information
Erik F. Wilthil, Edmund Brekke, Oskar Buset Asplin · 2018
Reliable track initiation is an important component of a tracking system, especially when it is used as part of a more general collision avoidance (COLAV) system. Some tracking methods (e.g., IPDA) come with an in-built track initiation capability, while other methods (e.g., JPDA) lack this capability, which in such cases typically is taken care of by heuristic rules such as the M/N logic. Although Reid's multiple hypothesis tracker (MHT) is capable of track initiation, many implementations do not include track initiation in the MHT framework due to the increased complexity. While MHT is fundamentally Bayesian, the non-Bayesian sequential probability ratio test (SPRT) of Van Keuk is often used for track initiation. In this paper we derive a Bayesian SPRT for track initiation based on Reid's MHT. The approach is compared with the classical SPRT, both from a theoretical perspective and using simulations. Furthermore, the paper provides a comparison between the two SPRT versions, the IPDA and the M/N logic in terms of system operating characteristic (SOC) curves and track initiation time. The initiation methods are also tested on real radar data recorded during full-scale maritime COLAV experiments.