AIS Aided Multi Hypothesis Tracker - Multi-Frame Multi-Target Tracking Using Radar and the Automatic Identification System

Abstract

To enable autonomous sea vessel's safe voyage, a real time situational awareness system is required. A tracking system incorporating both radar and Automatic Identifcation System (AIS) sensor data is preferred in maritime situations since radar and AIS have different strong and weak properties. A multi-frame multitarget tracking system based on radar measurements from own vessel, aided by AIS messages is developed. The system consist of two main parts, a logic based initialization algorithm and a Track Oriented Multi Hypothesis Tracker (TOMHT), both utilizing radar and AIS. This tracking system is demonstrated on simulated multitarget data with different tuning settings, external environment and AIS configurations.

The track loss improvement for window sizes of 3-9 of all targets equipped with class A AIS in a cluttered environment with low Probability of detection (50%) was 85-94% compared with only radar data. The tracking time percentage was improved by 43% for small (N=3) multi-frame window sizes and 15-8% for larger (N=6-9) window sizes when comparing pure radar measurements with full class AIS coverage for very low detection probability (50\%) and high clutter density.