Multiple Target Tracking based on Symmetric Measurement Equations

A new approach to track maintenance in multiple target tracking is presented in terms of measurements which are symmetric functions of target positions. The first-order version of the target state estimator is an extended Kalman filter (EKF). It is shown that except for an additional noise covariance term (due to the uncertainty in the origin of the measurements), the update equation for the approximate error covariance of the EKF is identical to the error covariance update equation in the case when the measurements and targets have been correctly associated.