LAMU tracker – a tracker for sensors with Large Angular Measurement Uncertainty

The LAMU (Large Angular Measurement Uncertainty) tracker has been developed for sensors with large angular measurement uncertainty, such as HF (High Frequency) radars. Traditional trackers do not perform very well for such sensors. The LAMU tracker uses the real uncertainty area of the measurements, while most regular trackers use elliptical uncertainty areas. The advantages of using the real uncertainty areas are shown in simulations, where the LAMU tracker has few false tracks and one track close to the true track, compared to the regular PDA (Probabilistic Data Association) tracker which has many false tracks. The LAMU tracker has shown very good results when used for tracking real data from an HF radar [1]. The LAMU tracker is developed for a 2D sensor that measures range, azimuth and range rate (e.g. by Doppler measurements). However, the LAMU tracker may easily be changed to fit sensors without range rate measurements. MHT (Multi Hypothesis Tracker) is the theoretically optimal tracker. Thus, a LAMU tracker based on MHT rather than PDA will probably give even better results than the LAMU tracker described in this report.