A multiple hypothesis tracker for multitarget tracking with multiple simultaneous measurements

Abstract

Typical multitarget tracking systems assume that in every scan there is at most one measurement for each target. In certain other systems such as over-the-horizon radar tracking, the sensor can generate resolvable multiple detections, corresponding to different measurement modes, from the same target. In this paper, we propose a new algorithm called multiple detection multiple hypothesis tracker (MD-MHT) to effectively track multiple targets in such multiple-detection systems. The challenge for this tracker, which follows the multiple hypothesis framework, is to jointly resolve the measurement origin and measurement mode uncertainties. The proposed tracker solves this data association problem via an extension to the multiframe assignment algorithm. Its performance is demonstrated on a simulated over-the-horizon-radar multitarget tracking scenario, which confirms the effectiveness of this algorithm.