Tracking with nonlinear measurement model by coordinate rotation transformation

A new filtering method is proposed to accurately estimate target state via decreasing the nonlinearity between radar polar measurements (or spherical measurements in three-dimensional (3D) radar) and target position in Cartesian coordinate. The degree of linearity is quantified here by utilizing correlation coefficient and Taylor series expansion. With the proposed method, the original measurements are converted from polar or spherical coordinate to a carefully chosen Cartesian coordinate system that is obtained by coordinate rotation transformation to maximize the linearity degree of the conversion function from polar/spherical to Cartesian coordinate. Then the target state is filtered along each axis of the chosen Cartesian coordinate. This method is compared with extended Kalman filter (EKF), Converted Measurement Kalman filter (CMKF), unscented Kalman filter (UKF) as well as Decoupled Converted Measurement Kalman filter (DECMKF). This new method provides highly accurate position and velocity with consistent estimation.