Joint direction of arrival and array shape tracking for multiple moving targets

Abstract

An algorithm for the joint tracking of source DOAs and sensor positions is presented to address the problem of DOA tracking in the presence sensor motion. Initial maximum likelihood estimates of source DOAs and sensor positions are refined by Kalman filtering. Spatio-temporally correlated array movement is considered. Source angle dynamics are used to achieve correct data association. The new technique is capable of performing well for the difficult cases of sources that cross in angle, fully coherent sources, as well as sources of identical or vastly different (possibly time-varying) power. Computer simulations show that the approach is robust in the presence of array motion modeling uncertainty and effectively reduces dependence on expensive and possibly unreliable hardware.