Multiple moving targets tracking from sensor scheduling perspective

This paper investigates the problem of tracking multiple moving targets by an ultrasonic location system with an active architecture. It is assumed that several moving targets are on the plane and may interfere with each other if they chirp simultaneously. Extended Kalman filters to estimate the positions of all moving targets are run in a centralized computer based on intermittently available distance measurement from the reference nodes. A myopic scheduling scheme together with a grouping approach are proposed to improve tracking accuracy and avoid interference. Two metric functions are used in myopic scheduling, namely, MEE and MAED. The simulations show that MEE may cause over-partiality which leads to bad tracking accuracy for some targets, and MAED can effectively eliminate such over-partiality. Myopic scheduling schemes with both MEE and MAED are realized on the Cricket platform based on active architecture. The experiment results show that active architecture results in better tracking performance than passive architecture for tracking a small number of moving targets. Also, it is shown that in active architecture myopic schemes with both MEE and MAED have better tracking performance than a periodic scheme.