Exploitation of a priori information for tracking maritime intermittent data sources

This paper presents results achieved by the Authors within the IPP Multi Sensorics program. The addressed research deals with the exploitation of context information, denoted as “Knowledge Base” within the different steps of multi-sensor data processing for surface surveillance. An overview on the research motivations and the application field (e.g., multi-target tracking in the Maritime Scenario) is given with focus on intermittent information sources (i.e., non-continuous sensor reports, due to low-SNR signals, sensor blind areas, communication loss, etc). The Knowledge Base is described by means of mathematical models and the inclusion of the a priori information into the Extended Kalman Filter is presented. Different target motion models are herein considered. Finally, the achievements are summarised in terms of track continuity performance over a live maritime traffic scenario.