Sequential nonlinear tracking using UKF and raw range-rate measurements

The three-dimensional (3D) converted measurements filtering (CMF) with both converted position and raw range-rate measurement is proposed to solve the Doppler radar target tracking, where the error between radar-target range and range rate are correlated. Firstly, not using pseudomeasurement constructed by product of range and range rate to reduce the high nonlinearity, the raw range-rate measurements are utilized by unscented Kalman filter (UKF), where the converted errors of the position and the range rate are decorrelated, then linear part (position measurements) and nonlinear part (range-rate measurement) are sequentially processed by Kalman filter (KF) and UKF. Secondly, based on the assumption of small measurement error, the mean and covariance of converted measurement errors are derived by second-order Taylor series expansion. Finally, the influence of the correlated coefficient rho between the range and range rate, and the range-rate noise deviation sigma_r are taken into account and extreme values of rho and sigma_r are used in Monte Carlo simulations. The results show that the proposed method is, in a sense, effective and practical