Geometric Approach to Target Tracking Motion Analysis in Bearing-Only Tracking

摘要

In maritime operations, target tracking and localization, also called target motion analysis (TMA), is an important issue. If an active sensor is used, the tracking process will be observable since we can predict the target range and bearing without any difficulty. The major disadvantage of using the active sources is that the enemy's targets can easily detect the ship position. Thus, tracking using active sources become a risky proposition. The alternative is to use passive tracking, but in this case the tracking process will be unobservable because we can only measure the target bearing. The range can be estimated via triangularization by using at least two platforms. Another method is to try to find the range using a geometrical approach to have at least one accurate range and then we can use it to construct the track under some assumptions. In this paper, a geometrical approach to bearing-only tracking is introduced. The target range is derived using few bearing measurements. Several own ship-target geometries have been set up for this purpose. To compute the target range, it is required that the own ship execute an admissible maneuver. The geometrical approach presented provides an acceptable performance and can be used for a short time period in the tracking process to provide a reasonable estimate of the range and then the tracker can use this range to generate the target track and hence reduce the bias.