Efficient multisensor fusion using multidimensional data association

We present the development of a multisensor fusion algorithm using multidimensional data association for multitarget tracking. The work is motivated by a large scale surveillance problem, where observations from multiple asynchronous sensors with time-varying sampling intervals (electronically scanned array (ESA) radars) are used for centralized fusion. The combination of multisensor fusion with multidimensional assignment is done so as to maximize the "time-depth" in addition to "sensor-width" for the number S of lists handled by the assignment algorithm. The standard procedure, which associates measurements from the most recently arrived S-1 frames to established tracks, can have, in the case of S sensors, a time-depth of zero. A new technique, which guarantees maximum effectiveness for an S-dimensional data association (S/spl ges/3), i.e., maximum time-depth (S-1) for each sensor without sacrificing the fusion across sensors, is presented. Using a sliding window technique (of length S), the estimates are updated after each frame of measurements. The algorithm provides a systematic approach to automatic track formation, maintenance, and termination for multitarget tracking using multisensor fusion with multidimensional assignment for data association. Estimation results are presented for simulated data for a large scale air-to-ground target tracking problem.