The state of the art of tracking has matured and consequently, the priorities for improved performance and expanded or
new processing capabilities have changed. Future directions in algorithm development in tracking and related data
processing are not easy to predict with accuracy. The future priorities of development tasks predicted in this
presentation are subjective; that is, simply the author's view. While there will continue to be algorithm development to
improve many aspects of tracking, the emphasis is expected to change in favor of expanded or new capabilities. This
paper concentrates on the interactions between the fusion tracker and the other fusion functions. Fusion is expected to
have higher priority for algorithm development than tracking with single sensor data. The interactions between the
fusion tracker and the other fusion functions are expected to be of special interest to achieve advanced fusion
performance. To facilitate this discussion, the categories of the state of the art of tracking are expanded beyond the
previous paper.
Many aspects of single sensor, multiple target tracking have matured during the last 20 years but room for improvement
remains. In contrast, fusion of data from multiple distributed sensors is far less mature and interest is expected to
continue to increase. Many fusion systems pose challenges that are not of much concern in tracking with data from a
single sensor and algorithm development of those aspects of fusion will continue to be needed. The capability of the
many functions and users of the output of trackers needs to be improved and expanded. Consequently, an increase is
expected in the need to improve in the interactions between the fusion tracker and the other fusion functions. Some of
important interactions between the fusion tracker and the other fusion functions of a high performance multiple sensor
fusion system are discussed and a dialogue on this topic is encouraged.
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