No abstract

Target tracking in high clutter or low signal-to-noise environments presents many challenges to tracking systems. Joint t\/Iaximum Likelihood estimator combined with Probabilistic Data Association (Jt\IL-PDA) is a well-known parameter estimation solution for the initialization of tracks of very 10\v observable and low signal-to-noiseratio targets in higher clutter environments. On the other hand, the Joint Probabilistic Data Association (JPDA) algorithm, which is commonly used for track maintenance, lacks automatic track initialization capability. This paper presents an algorithm to automatically initialize and maintain tracks using an integrated JPDA and J~IL-PDA approach that seamlessly shares information on existing tracks between the Jt\IL-PDA (used for initialization) and JPDA (used for maintenance) components.The motivation is to share information between the maintenance and initialization stages of the tracker, that are always on-going, so as Lo enable the tracking of an unknown number of targets using the JPDA approach in heavy clutter. The effectiveness of the new algorithm is demonstrated on a heavy clutter scenario and its performance is tested on negibouring targets with association ambiguity using angleonly measurements. IIIProfessor T. Kirubarajan, who spent time with me each week to guide me through the thesis, prm'ide funding and made numerous helpful suggestions to me, I would like to thank Dr. R. Tharmarasa for his thorough reviews and perceptive comments, which greatly improved the quality of my thesis work. I would also like to thank Dr. S, Dumitrescu and Dr. J, Chen for being members of my committee, I appreciate all the time the members of my committee took to read this thesis, and for providing their input and thoughts on the subject, IV