Methodologies for performance evaluation of multitarget multisensor tracking

Because there may be misassociations, performance evaluation of target tracking is complex due to ambiguities that can cause confusion about which target a track is following. This paper presents a methodology to deal with these ambiguities so that performance metrics can be used to regulate performance. The emphasis of this paper is on the first step of a two-step methodology, namely, the decision on which target to compare to a track so that measures of performance can be computed. However, no single methodology may be best for all the various types of tracking systems. In addition, no one methodology may be best for all the performance metrics that are appropriate to a specific system. Therefore, four methodologies are described to permit selection of the appropriate methodologies for a specific tracking system. Also discussed is the difference between the error characteristics of signal detection and target tracking. Target tracking exhibits not only the classical Type I and Type II errors but also another error type that is identified and referred to as Type III errors.