Multiple IR target tracking in clutter environment using the Viterbi algorithm

We address the formation of a Viterbi algorithm for target tracking after detection. A target tracking after detection process can be made by a Kalman Filter. The Kalman filter, however, may give some false tracks which are induced from false alarms. In this paper, we introduce an alternative approach to the target tracking based on the Viterbi algorithm. The state of the Viterbi algorithm includes the position and velocity of the target, and the measurement vector is the detected target position (in 2D). Because a target cannot maneuver abruptly due to its dynamical limitation, the velocity vector cannot be changed suddenly in direction as well as in magnitude. From this fact, we can define the state transition probability as a function of changes in angle and speed between the present state and the previous state. The proposed algorithm has been tested, and we observe that it tracks multiple targets accurately while the Kalman filter generates more tracks following clutter points. In addition, we have observed that a dynamic programming based approach fails to track the target.