OITrack: Multi-Object Tracking for Small Targets in Satellite Video via Online Trajectory Completion and Iterative Expansion over Union

Multi-object tracking (MOT) in satellite videos presents significant challenges, including small target sizes, dense distributions, and complex motion patterns. To address these issues, we propose OITrack, an improved tracking framework that integrates a Trajectory Completion Module (TCM), an Adaptive Kalman Filter (AKF), and an Iterative Expansion Intersection over Union Strategy (I-EIoU) strategy. Specifically, TCM enhances temporal continuity by compensating for missing trajectories, AKF improves tracking robustness by dynamically adjusting observation noise, and I-EIoU optimizes target association, leading to more accurate small-object matching. Experimental evaluations on the VIdeo Satellite Objects (VISO) dataset demonstrated that OITrack outperforms existing MOT methods across multiple key metrics, achieving a Multiple Object Tracking Accuracy (MOTA) of 57.0%, an Identity F1 Score (IDF1) of 67.5%, a reduction in False Negatives (FN) to 29,170, and a decrease in Identity Switches (ID switches) to 889. These results indicate that our method effectively improves tracking accuracy while minimizing identity mismatches, enhancing overall robustness.