Passive-sensor data association for tracking: a PC software

ABSTRACT This paper describes a PC software package for the following problem : We are given multiple passive sensors, each with a number of detections at a given time. With each detection, there is an associated line-of-sight measurement originating from a source. The source can be either a real target, inwhich case the measurements are azimuth and elevation angles of the target, plus some measurementnoise, or a spurious one, i.e., a false alarm. Position estimates of targets can be formed by associatingmeasurements originating from it. Mathematically, the measurement-target association problem leads toa generalized assignment problem. The problem of forming position estimates of multiple targets in a dense cluster, from passive sensor measurements at a given time, require at least three sensors. However, for three sensors, the three-dimensional assignment is known to be NP-complete, i.e., the complexity of the optimal algorithm increases exponentially with the size of the problem. The