IMM Filter Based Human Tracking Using a Distributed Wireless Sensor Network

This paper proposes a human tracking approach in a distributed wireless sensor network. Most of the efforts on human tracking focus on vision techniques. However, most vision-based approaches to moving object detection involve intensive real-time computations. In this paper, we present an algorithm for human tracking using low-cost range wireless sensor nodes which can contribute lower computational burden based on a distributed computing system, while the centralized computing system often makes some information from sensors delay. Because the human target often moves with high maneuvering, the proposed algorithm applies the interacting multiple model (IMM) filter techniques and a novel sensor node selection scheme developed considering both the tracking accuracy and the energy cost which is based on the tacking results of IMM filter at each time step. This paper also proposed a novel sensor management scheme which can manage the sensor node effectively during the sensor node selection and the tracking process. Simulations results show that the proposed approach can achieve superior tracking accuracy compared to the most recent human motion tracking scheme.