Track-MT3: A Novel Multitarget Tracking Algorithm Based on Transformer Network

To address the challenges associated with the data association and stable long-term tracking of multiple targets in complex environments, this study proposes an innovative end-to-end multitarget tracking model called Track-MT3 based on a transformer network. First, a dual-query mechanism comprising detection and tracking queries is introduced to implicitly perform measurement-to-target data association and enable accurate target state estimation. Subsequently, a cross-frame target alignment strategy is employed to enhance the temporal continuity of tracking trajectories, ensuring consistent target identities across frames. In addition, a query transformation and temporal feature encoding module is designed to improve target motion pattern modeling by adaptively combining target dynamics information at different time scales. During model training, a collective average loss function is adopted to achieve the global optimization of tracking performance, considering the entire tracking process in an end-to-end manner. Finally, the performance of Track-MT3 is extensively evaluated under various complex multitarget tracking scenarios using multiple metrics. Experimental results demonstrate that Track-MT3 exhibits superior long-term tracking performance than baseline methods such as MT3. Specifically, Track-MT3 achieves overall performance improvements of 6% and 20% against JPDA and MHT, respectively. By effectively exploiting temporal information, Track-MT3 ensures stable and robust multitarget tracking in complex dynamic environments.