In this study, we provide an overview of recent advances in multisensor multitarget tracking based on the random finite set (RFS) approach. The fusion that

In this paper, we propose a multisensor cardinalized probability density hypothesis (CPHD) filter for tracking an unknown number of targets that may maneuver over time by using a sensor network with partially overlapping fields of views (PO-FoVs). We develop a novel, Gaussian mixture particle (GMP) implementation of the jump-Markov CPHD filter to deal with highly non-linear/non-Gaussian models and target maneuvers. The concepts of zero-forcing and zero-avoiding originally used in density approximation are introduced to elucidate a key difference between geometric and arithmetic averaging approaches, which are extended for joint target-state and mode fusion with regard to PO-FoVs where distributed flooding is used for internode communication. The resulting GMP-JMCPHD fusion algorithm comprises three FoV-oriented steps: splitting, fusion, and merging. Simulations are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approaches.

In the context of distributed target tracking based on a mobile peer-to-peer sensor network, the relative locations between the sensors are critical for their internode information exchange and fusion. For accurate coordinate calibration between the neighboring sensors, namely sensor localization, we propose a computationally efficient approach that minimizes the mismatch error between position estimates of the common targets yielded at neighbor sensors. This mismatch error is given by a Wasserstein-like distance that is a mean square error between two sets of position estimates which are associated efficiently via Hungarian assignment. Simulations have demonstrated that our approach, on the testbed of an arithmetic average fusion based probability hypothesis density filter, performs similar to the cutting-edge approach based on loopy belief propagation, but computes much faster and has much lower communication cost.

This paper, the third part of a series papers on the arithmetic average density fusion approach and its application for target tracking, proposes the first heterogenous density fusion approach to scalable multisensor multitarget tracking where the inter-connected sensors run different types of random finite set (RFS) filters according to their respective capacity and need. These diverse RFS filters result in heterogenous multitarget densities that are to be fused with each other in a proper means for more robust and accurate detection and localization of the targets. Our approach is based on Gaussian mixture implementations where the local Gaussian components (L-GCs) are revised for PHD consensus, i.e., the corresponding unlabeled probability hypothesis densities (PHDs) of each filter best fit their average regardless of the specific form of the local densities. To this end, a computationally efficient, coordinate descent approach is proposed which only revises the weights of the L-GCs, keeping the other parameters unchanged. In particular, the PHD filter, the unlabeled and labeled multi-Bernoulli (MB/LMB) filters are considered. Simulations have demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed approach for both homogeneous and heterogenous fusion of the PHD-MB-LMB filters in different configurations.

The Poisson multi-Bernoulli mixture (PMBM) filter is extended for distributed implementation using a wireless sensor network. At the core of the proposed networking approach, the PMBM posterior is decomposed into two parts corresponding to the undetected and detected targets, respectively. Fusion is motivated to be performed with regard to the latter only which is represented by MBM based on a distributed flooding algorithm for internode communication, which iteratively shares the MBMs between neighbor sensors. Then, a suboptimal “best-fit-ofmixture” principle is followed at each local sensor to find a MBM that best fits the mixture of MBMs aggregated from distinct sensors, leading to an arithmetic average (AA) of these MBMs. We prove the exact closure of the MBM-AA fusion and discuss its sub-optimality and limitations. Simulation demonstrates the effectiveness and limitations of our approach.