An Optical Technique For Measurement/Target Probability Assignments

An important step in multitarget tracking (MTT) is the assignment of measurement/target pairing probabilities, i.e., the probability that a certain measurement is associated with a particular target. This is one of the more computationally intensive steps of the Joint Probabilistic Data Association (JPDA) and other MTT algorithms. Determining such assignment probabilities in the conventional JPDA algorithm involves the generation and analysis of all possible binary feasibility matrices, where each feasibility matrix represents the feasible event that each measurement is due to only one target (or clutter) and that each target causes at most one measurement. We discuss a new and most efficient technique for obtaining the measurement/target pairing probabilities directly (without first producing the feasibility matrices) and its implementation on a new analog optical computer.