A distributed implementation of a sequential Monte Carlo probability hypothesis density filter for sensor networks

Abstract

This paper presents a Sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) Probability Hypothesis Density (PHD) algorithm for decentralized state estimation from multiple platforms. The proposed algorithm addresses the problem of communicating and fusing track information from a team of multiple sensing platforms detecting and tracking multiple targets in the surveillance region. Each sensing platform makes multiple, noisy measurements of an underlying, time-varying state that describes the monitored system. The monitored system involves potentially nonlinear target dynamics described by Markovian state-space model, nonlinear measurements, and non-Gaussian process and measurement noises. Each sensing platform reports measurements to a node in the network, which performs sequential estimation of the current system state using the probability hypothesis density (PHD) filter, which propagates only the first-order statistical moment of the full target posterior of the multi-target state. A sequential Monte Carlo method is used to implement the filter. The crucial consideration is what information needs to be transmitted over the network in order to perform online estimation of the current state of the monitored system, whilst attempting to minimize communication overhead. Simulation results demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed algorithm for a team of bearing only sensors.