Abstract
A novel efficient track initiation method is proposed for the harsh underwater target tracking environment (heavy clutter and large measurement errors): track splitting, evaluating, pruning and merging method (TSEPM). Track initiation demands that the method should determine the existence and initial state of a target quickly and correctly. Heavy clutter and large measurement errors certainly pose additional difficulties and challenges, which deteriorate and complicate the track initiation in the harsh underwater target tracking environment. There are three primary shortcomings for the current track initiation methods to initialize a target: (a) they cannot eliminate the turbulences of clutter effectively; (b) there may be a high false alarm probability and low detection probability of a track; (c) they cannot estimate the initial state for a new confirmed track correctly. Based on the multiple hypotheses tracking principle and modified logic-based track initiation method, in order to increase the detection probability of a track, track splitting creates a large number of tracks which include the true track originated from the target. And in order to decrease the false alarm probability, based on the evaluation mechanism, track pruning and track merging are proposed to reduce the false tracks. TSEPM method can deal with the track initiation problems derived from heavy clutter and large measurement errors, determine the target’s existence and estimate its initial state with the least squares method. What's more, our method is fully automatic and does not require any kind manual input for initializing and tuning any parameter. Simulation results indicate that our new method improves significantly the performance of the track initiation in the harsh underwater target tracking environment.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Aslan, M.S. and Saranli, A., 2011. Threshold optimization for tracking a nonmaneuvering target, IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems, 47(4), 2844–2859.
Charlish, A., Govaers, F. and Koch, W., 2012. Track-to-track fusion schemes for a radar network, Proceedings of the IET International Conference on Radar Systems (Radar 2012), IEEE, Glasgow, UK, pp. 1–6.
Hu, Z.J., Leung, H. and Blanchette, M., 1997. Statistical performance analysis of track initiation techniques, IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, 45(2), 445–456.
Isbitiren, G. and Akan, O.B., 2011. Three-dimensional underwater target tracking with acoustic sensor networks, IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, 60(8), 3897–3906.
Jiang, X., Harishan, K. and Tharmarasa, R., 2014. Integrated track initialization and maintenance in heavy clutter using probabilistic data association, Signal Processing, 94, 241–250.
Kennedy, H.L., 2008a. Clutter-based test statistics for automatic track initiation, Acta Automatica Sinica, 34(3), 266–273.
Kennedy, H.L., 2008b. Comparison of MHT and PDA track initiation performance, Proceedings of the 2008 International Conference on Radar, IEEE, Adelaide, SA, Australia, pp. 508–512.
Kennedy, H.L., 2014. Powerful test statistic for track management in clutter, IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems, 50(1), 207–223.
Kural, F., Ankan, F., Arikan, O. and Efe, M., 2006. Incorporating doppler velocity measurement for track initiation and maintenance, Proceedings of the IEE Seminar on Target Tracking: Algorithms and Applications (Ref. No. 2006/11359), IET, Birmingham, UK, pp. 107–114.
Kural, F., Arikan, F., Arikan, O. and Efe, M., 2009. Performance evaluation of the sequential track initiation schemes with 3D position and doppler velocity measurements, Progress in Electromagnetics Research B, 18, 121–148.
Lee, E.H. and Song, T.L., 2017. Multi-sensor track-to-track fusion with target existence in cluttered environments, IET Radar, Sonar & Navigation, 11(7), 1108–1115.
Leung, H., Hu, Z. and Blanchette, M., 1996. Evaluation of multiple target track initiation techniques in real radar tracking environments, IEE Proceedings-Radar, Sonar and Navigation, 143(4), 246–254.
Li, D.D., Zhang, Y., Lin, Y. and Liu, J., 2016. A novel track initiation method for track splitting and merging, OCEANS 2016-Shanghai, IEEE, Shanghai, China, pp. 1–7.
Lin, D.T. and Huang, K.Y., 2011. Collaborative pedestrian tracking and data fusion with multiple cameras, IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security, 6(4), 1432–1444.
Liu, H.W., Liu, H.W., Dan, X.D., Zhou, S.H. and Liu, J., 2016. Cooperative track initiation for distributed radar network based on target track information, IET Radar, Sonar & Navigation, 10(4), 735–741.
Liu, Y. and Li, X.R., 2015. Measure of nonlinearity for estimation, IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, 63(9), 2377–2388.
Mallick, M., Bar-Shalom, Y., Kirubarajan, T. and Moreland, M., 2015. An improved single-point track initiation using GMTI measurements, IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems, 51(4), 2697–2714.
Mallick, M. and La Scala, B., 2008. Comparison of single-point and two-point difference track initiation algorithms using position measurements, Acta Automatica Sinica, 34(3), 258–265.
Musicki, D. and La Scala, B., 2008. Multi-target tracking in clutter without measurement assignment, IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems, 44(3), 877–896.
Musicki, D. and Song, T.L., 2013. Track initialization: Prior target velocity and acceleration moments, IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems, 49(1), 665–670.
Raj, K.D. and Krishna, I.M., 2015. Kalman filter based target tracking for track while scan data processing, Proceeedings of the 2nd International Conference on Electronics and Communication Systems (ICECS), IEEE, Coimbatore, India, pp. 878–883.
Ristic, B., Vo, B.N., Clark, D. and Vo, B.T., 2011. A metric for performance evaluation of multi-target tracking algorithms, IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, 59(7), 3452–3457.
Schuhmacher, D., Vo, B.T. and Vo, B.N., 2008. A consistent metric for performance evaluation of multi-object filters, IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, 56(8), 3447–3457.
Tang, X., Tharmarasa, R., McDonald, M. and Kirubarajan, T., 2017. Multiple detection-aided low-observable track initialization using ML-PDA, IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems, 53(2), 722–735.
Yan, J.K., Liu, H.W., Jiu, B., Liu, Z. and Bao, Z., 2015. Joint detection and tracking processing algorithm for target tracking in multiple radar system, IEEE Sensors Journal, 15(11), 6534–6541.
Yeom, S.W., Kirubarajan, T. and Bar-Shalom, Y., 2004. Track segment association. fine-step IMM and initialization with Doppler for improved track performance, IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems, 40(1), 293–309.
Zhao, Z.L., Li, T.X.R. and Jilkov, V.P., 2004. Best linear unbiased filtering with nonlinear measurements for target tracking, IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems, 40(4), 1324–1336.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Foundation item: The research was financially supported by the Key Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. KGFZD-125-014), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 61273334) and State Key Laboratory of Robotics Foundation (Grant No. 2017-Z05).
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Li, Dd., Lin, Y. & Zhang, Y. A Track Initiation Method for the Underwater Target Tracking Environment. China Ocean Eng 32, 206–215 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13344-018-0022-0
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13344-018-0022-0