A novel state-dependent VS-IMM tracker for GMTI radar

Ground moving target indication (GMTI) radar utilizes Doppler frequency shift caused by the relative radial speed of target and the radar platform to distinguish ground moving target from surface clutter. But the radial speed becomes zero when the ground target is stationary or rotates around the radar platform. Then, the target measurement will be mistaken for surface clutter and removed, leading to track segmentation in tracking applications. Considering the maximum deceleration of target is always limited, it cannot switch to the stopped-state from a high speed or rotated-state from a high radial speed during sampling interval. So according to the different target states, we define three different target motion stages and develop a state-dependent VS-IMM (SD-VS-IMM) tracker by introducing a rotated model and a stopped model. The simulation results show that the proposed algorithm outperforms previous methods for ground moving target tracking application.