Indoor detection and tracking of human targets with UWB radar sensor networks

Abstract

In this paper, the whole signal processing chain for an ultra-wideband (UWB) radar sensor network (RSN) is presented, starting from real measurements collected by sensor devices, and ending with the estimation of the target trajectory. The RSN is composed by one transmitter and six receivers, and monitors an indoor area of about 70 m2 performing tracking of a human target. The proposed processing chain consists of: clutter removal, a novel detection scheme, one-dimensional clustering, trilateration, two-dimensional clustering, particle-based probability hypothesis density filter tracking, and data association. Numerical results show the remarkable performance of the system, resulting in a root mean square localization error of 36 cm, a value smaller than the target size. The presented experimental study show that it is possible to accurately track human targets using a UWB RSN in a densely cluttered environment.