Association based Feedback Aided Underwater Passive Target Tracking

Passive sonar target tracking is a challenging problem, especially due to the high ambient noise as well as multiple tracks originating from the same target. One of the features which is always available in a passive sonar system is the bearing of the target. So, passive bearing line tracking is a widely used tracking method in this field. Passive bearing line tracking is really challenged, in situations like low Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) scenarios and when targets are spaced close to each other. This paper presents a track association system which associates sensor level tracks like passive bearing line tracks and multiple frequency line tracks, and provides feedback to sensor level tracking. This results in the performance enhancement of sensor level tracks like passive bearing line tracks. An enhanced multiple frequency line tracking (MFLT) method is also proposed in this paper, which will make the passive bearing line tracking more robust and accurate. The effectiveness of the proposed method is illustrated by various multi-target tracking simulation scenarios.