A Bernoulli Track-Before-Detect Filter for Interacting Targets in Maritime Radar

This article is devoted to the problem of multitarget tracking in the maritime environment using Bernoulli track-before-detect (TBD) filtering. Detection and tracking of weak targets in sea clutter using high-resolution airborne radar is notoriously challenging compared to classical target tracking problems. Furthermore, the measured amplitude in range-azimuth cells that are in the vicinity of closely spaced (interacting) targets represents a superposition of individual target contributions, demanding a special joint treatment. This article proposes a novel solution for multitarget tracking using Bernoulli TBD for maritime radar and covers cases when targets are both far apart and closely spaced. Comparisons with existing TBD algorithms are used to verify the efficacy of the proposed Bernoulli TBD algorithm with realistic sea clutter simulations used to create challenging scenarios with variable target strengths.