A space-based radar nonlinear tracking method for air targets based on VB-PHD filter

Space-based radar has better coverage and is not limited by the curvature of the earth. Aircraft target tracking is particularly important in space-based radar system. However, the long observation distance and strong nonlinear observation increases the challenge of target tracking. Therefore, we proposed a space-based radar nonlinear tracking method for air targets based on variational Bayesian probability hypothesis density (VB-PHD) filter. The relationship between state and observation is established. Then, the VB method is adopted to deal with uncertainty of measurement noise variances. Besides, the cubature filter is introduced to deal with the strongly nonlinear models, and the recursion process is completed by using the third-order spherical radial volume rule. Finally, simulation scenarios with different measurement noise parameters were constructed, and the tracking result comparisons show that it effectively solves nonlinear problems, and tracking precision can be significantly improved.