On multitarget pairwise-Markov models

Abstract

Single- and multi-target tracking are both typically based on strong independence assumptions regarding both the target states and sensor measurements. In particular, both are theoretically based on the hidden Markov chain (HMC) model. That is, the target process is a Markov chain that is observed by an independent observation process. Since HMC assumptions are invalid in many practical applications, the pairwise Markov chain (PMC) model has been proposed as a way to weaken those assumptions. In this paper it is shown that the PMC model can be directly generalized to multitarget problems. Since the resulting tracking filters are computationally intractable, the paper investigates generalizations of the cardinalized probability hypothesis density (CPHD) filter to applications with PMC models.