Adaptive tracking of multiple hot-spot target IR images

In the recent past, the capability of tracking dynamic targets from forward-looking infrared (FLIR) measurements has been improved substantially, by replacing standard correlation trackers with adaptive extended Kalman filters. This research investigates a tracker able to handle "multiple hot-spot" targets, in which digital (or optical) signal processing is employed on the FLIR data to identify the underlying target shape. This identified shape is then used in the measurement model portion of the filter as it estimates target offset from the center of the field-of-view. In this algorithm, an extended Kalman filter processes the raw intensity measurements from the FLIR to produce target estimates. An alternative algorithm uses a linear Kalman filter to process the position indications of an enhanced correlator in order to generate tracking estimates; the enhancement is accomplished not only by thresholding to eliminate poor correlation information, but also by incorporating the dynamics information from the Kalman filter and the on-line identification of the target shape as a template instead of merely using previous frames of data. The performance capabilities of these two algorithms are evaluated under various tracking environment conditions and for a range of choices of design parameters.