Multi-hypothesis tracking (MHT) is an algorithmic technique currently being utilized in military surveillance systems (e.g., Joint STARS). In that application, data reported by surveillance sensors (called reports) must be correlated with existing or new target tracks, and the MHT technique is used to maintain a data base of possible report/track assignments over a designated time period. The MHT technique will usually use a Kalman filter to determine the probabilities of correct report/track correlation, and in this way the most likely report/track assignments are determined. With a few modifications or extensions, the MHT technique can be applied to the problem of star identification posed in a typical star tracker based attitude determination system. Here, star positions reported by one or more star trackers must be correlated with the positions of known stars in a star catalog. The proposed Phase I effort is to define the top level design of the MHT algorithm for this problem, and to demonstrate its viability through analysis and simulation.Commercial Applications:The proposed design concept would have wide applicability in the commercial satellite market.
