Powerful Test Statistic for Track Management in Clutter

A test statistic, which does not require prior knowledge of p
_d
, is proposed to support automatic track confirmation and termination decisions in a multiple hypotheses tracker (MHT). Use of gamma distributions yields a linear log-likelihood ratio (LLR) with constant parameters derived from target and clutter models. The proposed LLR results in a higher probability of true track confirmation (i.e., the statistical power of the test) for a given probability of false track confirmation than does the reference MHT implementation and more uniform confirmation statistics.