Evaluation of an MHT-Enabled Tracker with Simulated Multistatic Sonar Data

Multistatic sonar is an operational concept for jointly deploying and processing multiple sonar sources and receivers in order to obtain enhanced coverage of targets of interest in a volume of ocean. The enhanced performance is obtained through the diversity of "looks" at the targets of interest provided by the many source-target-receiver geometries available through multistatics. This increased probability of target detection by the sensor field is particularly significant in littoral operations, where a tracker must be able to hold the target in the presence of large numbers of random false alarms. This paper describes the performance results of a Multiple Hypothesis Tracking (MHT) enabled tracker against three simulated multistatic data sets provided by the Multi Static Tracking Working Group (MSTWG). Using a set of MSTWG-defined tracking metrics, the tracker is demonstrated to successfully discriminate target contacts from large quantities of false alarms, and in doing so, successfully track the target(s) of interest in each scenario. These results lend credence to the idea that multistatic operations can significantly enhance the ability of a maritime defense force to localize and track targets of interest. Several valuable lessons regarding tracker configuration for multistatic tracking, learned as a result of this research, are presented.