This paper describes the development and implementation of evaluation metrics for group state estimator (GSE, i.e. group tracking) algorithms. Key differences between group tracker metrics and individual tracker metrics are the method used for track-to-truth association and the characterization of group raid size. Another significant contribution of this work is the incorporation of measured radar performance in assessing tracker performance. The result of this work is a set of measures of performance derived from canonical individual target tracker metrics, extended to characterize the additional information provided by a group tracker. The paper discusses additional considerations in group tracker evaluation, including the definition of a group and group-to-group confusion. Metrics are computed on real field data to provide examples of real-world analysis, demonstrating an approach which provides characterization of group tracker performance, independent of the sensor's performance.

Date Published: 20 May 2013
PDF: 13 pages
Proc. SPIE 8744, Automatic Target Recognition XXIII, 87440Z (20 May 2013); doi: 10.1117/12.2016466

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 8744:
Automatic Target Recognition XXIII
Firooz A. Sadjadi; Abhijit Mahalanobis, Editor(s)