Abstract

This paper proposes a novel ground vehicle tracking method using an airborne ground moving target
indicator radar where the surrounding geographic information is considered to determine vehicle’s
movement type as well as constrain its positions. Multiple state models corresponding to different
movement modes are applied to represent the vehicle’s behaviour within different terrain conditions.
Based on geographic conditions and multiple state models, a constrained variable structure multiple
model particle filter algorithm aided by particle swarm optimisation is proposed. Compared with
the traditional multiple model particle filtering schemes, the proposed algorithm utilises a particle
swarm optimisation technique for the particle filter which generates more effective particles and
generated particles are constrained into the feasible geographic region. Numerical simulation results
in a realistic environment show that the proposed method achieves better tracking performance
compared with current state-of-the-art ones for manoeuvring vehicle tracking.