Multitarget tracking system based on an infrared fish-eye lens.

A multitarget tracking system based on an infrared (IR) fish-eye lens is built to satisfy urgent requirements of large-field IR, multitarget, real-time reconnaissance and tracking. Utilizing an IR fish-eye lens and a 512 x 512 pixel PtSi detector, the system can detect threatening targets at the whole space domain and the whole time domain. The hardware of the system based on a dual-digital signal processor is designed to implement data processing for multitarget tracking algorithms, which include a track initiation algorithm and a modified generalized probability data association algorithm. We also carried out a tracking experiment for two aerial maneuvering targets. Comparing the theoretical and experimental tracks, the availability of the system and the real-time capability of multitarget tracking are validated. (C) 2013 Optical Society of America