Coalition formation for distributed tracking in wireless camera networks

We present a fully distributed framework for multi-target tracking with bandwidth-limited (wireless) camera networks. Cameras self-organize into coalitions to perform the task of distributed target tracking via local interactions. Each camera joins the coalitions based on considerations of marginal utility, which takes into account tracking confidence and communication performance in the neighborhood of the camera. The proposed framework achieves higher tracking accuracy and quicker convergence than decentralized tracking or distributed tracking without coalition formation. Moreover, the communication cost of the proposed framework is considerably reduced compared to distributed tracking without coalition formation and comparable to decentralized tracking as the number of targets increases.