Detection and tracking of an underwater target using the combination of a particle filter and track-before-detect

Track-before-detect technology is a powerful technology for detection and tracking of targets with low signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs). The paper presents a method for underwater targets detection and tracking with the combination of a particle filter and track-before-detect method. It uses the standard particle-filter based on the track-before-detect scheme, taking the percentage of alive particles as the target existence probability and the weighted mean of alive particles' states as the tracking results. The measurements here are the data collected by a vertical line array instead of the target strength used for track-before-detect in common conditions. The simulation and experiment results of tracking and detection of a target using data collected by the vertical line array in the shallow water show that the present approach performs better both in detection and tracking compared with the conventional matched field processing method at low SNR and shows comparable performance at higher SNRs.