In this work, a waveform agile sensing method for the target tracking problem has been described. By dynamically selecting the transmitted waveform from a generalized FM chirp signal library with different phase functions and chirp parameters, the tracker can improve the performance dramatically. The waveform design algorithm is based on the myopic optimization of a cost function, which is the predicted mean squared error. The cost function is approximated using the CRLB combined with unscented transformation. Then the generalized FM phase function and the corresponding parameters are configured according to a grid search over all the phase function candidates and allowable parameter values. Due to the nonlinearity of the measurement model in the tracking system, particle filtering is applied to track the state of the target. This approach was demonstrated by tracking a target moving in a 2-D cluttered environment with two active sensors. The simulation results showed that the mean squared error of the tracking was dramatically reduced by adaptively adjusting the transmitted signal.

Inspec keywords: radar clutter; particle filtering (numerical methods); mean square error methods; target tracking; time-frequency analysis; radar signal processing; chirp modulation; optimisation; sensors; measurement systems

Other keywords: particle filtering; mean squared error; waveform agile sensing method; cost function approximation; target tracking problem; 2D cluttered environment; active sensors; waveform transmission; cost function; waveform time-frequency characterization; chirp parameters; mean squared error prediction; dynamically configured sensor systems; generalized FM phase function; measurement model; signal transmission; moving target tracking; generalized FM chirp signal library; CRLB; unscented transformation; myopic optimization-based waveform design algorithm

Subjects: Radar equipment, systems and applications; Filtering methods in signal processing; Interpolation and function approximation (numerical analysis); Optimisation techniques; Sensing devices and transducers