Estimation of Target Detectability for Maritime Target Tracking in the PDA Framework

The detection probability of maritime vessels may change over time, either slowly or more abruptly, due to effects such as sea state and varying aspect angle. If the varying detectability is not accounted for in the tracking system, tracks may be terminated or lost. The undetected targets may cause dangerous situations in applications such as maritime collision avoidance. In the following, we propose two methods for tracking targets with varying detection probability, both in the integrated probabilistic data association (IPDA) framework. One method uses the number of validated measurements to estimate the detectability of the target, while the other calculates the joint detectability and existence probabilities based on the measurement association likelihoods. Both methods show significant improvements over the conventional Markov chain 1 and 2 IPDAs.