Bayesian multitarget tracker for multistatic sonobuoy systems

The paper presents the latest stage in the development of a robust multitarget tracker to be deployed in a large multistatic sonobuoy system. The major technical challenges are: the association of multiple measurements from different receivers for every ping; target detection dependence on the source-target-receiver geometry, ping properties, target properties and acoustic propagation conditions; and the combination of different measurement modalities (with and without the Doppler). The tracker is formulated as the multi-sensor linear-multitarget Bernoulli filter and, due to the highly nonlinear measurements, implemented using the sequential Monte Carlo method. The amplitude of detections is exploited for improved track initiation and false track discrimination. Numerical simulations demonstrate its robust performance.