Joint Probabilistic Data Association in Distributed Sensor Networks

A distributed multitarget tracking problem is considered. The Joint Probabilistic Data Association (JPDA) algorithm has been applied successfully for tracking under the multiple-target and clutter environment. However, it assumes a centralized processing architecture in which all the sensors´ measurements are transmitted to a single processor and processed. In many applications, however, a set of local processors are present and each processor processes the local sensors´ measurements instead of transmitting them to the central processor. The locally processed results are then interchanged and fused together through the communication network. A distributed version of JPDA algorithm which handles the fusion problem from multiple processors is presented.