Future trends to enhance the robustness of a target tracker

Future trends to enhance the robustness of a target tracker subject to target maneuverability and system uncertainties are presented. Latest developments of Interacting Multiple Model (JMM) estimation techniques are exploited to enhance the performance of a target tracker. These include variable structure mechanism and on-line system noise identifier. These two subsystems are added to create an extra adaptivity dimension to the baseline IMM estimator, thereby optimally enhancing its performance accuracy and robustness. The variable structure mechanism fundamentally solves the inherent performance degradation problem (resulting from using fixed-set of models) associated with the baseline IMM estimator. The system noise identifier is designed to practically perform on-line system noise (variance) identification to enhance the effectiveness of the variable structure by smartly fine-tuning the noise characteristics of each submodel of the IMM algorithm in a realtime fashion.