Multiple hypothesis tracking with multiframe assignment using range and range-rate measurements

In this paper we consider the problem of multitarget tracking using range and range-rate measurements collected from a single maneuvering platform. Although bearings-only tracking has been studied extensively, only a few studies exist in the literature that consider range-only tracking. The motivating application for this work is maritime surveillance using radars equipped with inverse synthetic aperture radar mode. We consider a realistic scenario that consists of an unknown number of targets with measurement origin uncertainty due to their presence and false alarms, and imperfect radar measurements. The algorithm that we proposed is a multiple hypothesis tracker based on the multiframe assignment algorithm. Different track initialization techniques depending on whether or not initial bearing measurements are available are considered and an angle-parameterized filter is used to track the targets. Simulations conducted show the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm in terms of tracking accuracy and track maintenance capability.