Multi-target tracking (MTT) is one of the most important functions of radar systems. Traditional multi-target tracking methods based on data association convert multi-target tracking problems into single-target tracking problems. When the number of targets is large, the amount of computation increases exponentially. The Gaussian mixture probability hypothesis density (GM-PHD) filtering based on a random finite set (RFS) provides an effective method to solve multi-target tracking problems without the requirement of explicit data association. However, it is difficult to track targets accurately in real-time with dense clutter and low detection probability. To solve this problem, this paper proposes a multi-feature matching GM-PHD (MFGM-PHD) filter for radar multi-target tracking. Using Doppler and amplitude information contained in radar echo to modify the weights of Gaussian components, the weight of the clutter can be greatly reduced and the target can be distinguished from clutter. Simulations show that the proposed MFGM-PHD filter can improve the accuracy of multi-target tracking as well as the real-time performance with high clutter density and low detection probability.
Keywords: GM-PHD; RFS; multi-feature matching; multi-target tracking; radar.