Tracking with asynchronous multiple sensors

Sensor data fusion has long been recognized as a means to improve target tracking. Common practice assumes that the sensors used are synchronous (i.e., perform the same operation at the identical time), take measurements at the same time and have no communication delays between sensor platforms and the central processing center. Such assumptions are not valid in practice. This paper removes these assumptions when dealing with multisensor target tracking. In particular, it assumes that the sensors used can have different data rates and communication delays, between local and central platforms. A new tracking algorithm using asynchronous sensors is proposed and derived in this paper.