Quantized Kalman Filter Tracking in Directional Sensor Networks

Moving target tracking in directional sensor networks has recently attracted attention by right of special directional sensing features. Unlike omnidirectional sensors, the directional sensor senses the target only in the direction of its orientation. It can provide quantized direction that indicates the presence or absence of the target in the sensing field, rather than just the analog measurement of sensing signal with respect to the detected target. A quantized Kalman filter (QKF) based on both quantized directions and analog ranging measurements is derived in the minimum mean-square error (MMSE) sense. Its performances of mean square estimation error (MSE) and complexity are also analyzed. Then, a reduced-complexity QKF of high-accuracy is pursued to facilitate its implementation. It is proved that the QKF yields a smaller MSE than the traditional extended Kalman filter (EKF) merely based on analog measurements. The posterior Cramér-Rao lower bound (PCRLB) is introduced as the performance measure. The performance advantages of the proposed QKF are demonstrated using Monte Carlo simulations in a target tracking application using ultrasonic ranging sensors.