Tracking Extended Targets: Novel TPMB Filter Driven by Model and Data Collaboration

In most filtering algorithms involving measurement data association, handling the complex computations due to multiple hypotheses is necessary. This paper introduces a novel Trajectory Poisson Multi-Bernoulli (TPMB) filter for tracking extended targets, facilitated by a synergy between the model and the data. This filter can track extended targets under unknown process and measurement noise. Initially, on the model-driven side, we compute multi-model transition probabilities using the posterior probabilities from models at two consecutive time points with the targets in high maneuverability state. The accuracy of the tracking algorithm is improved by calculating the improved Interacting Multiple Model (IMM) transition probability at each time step. For the data-driven aspect, the Gate-control Belief Propagation (GBP) is set in the message- passing algorithm to reduce the running time of false hypothesis associations. Thus, it is unnecessary to consider all message information when computing the likelihood matrix for target-measurement associations. Subsequently, the posterior density function of the Adaptive Square Root Cubature Kalman Filter (ASCKF) is constructed to adaptively estimate unknown process and measurement noises, while importance sampling in the current particle filter further mitigates particle degradation. Experiments demonstrate that our algorithm reduces the running time of data associations, alleviates particle degradation, and more accurately tracks maneuvering targets under nonlinear conditions and estimates their states.