{"ID":2879337,"CreatedAt":"2026-06-01T04:54:23.091178241Z","UpdatedAt":"2026-06-01T04:54:23.091178241Z","DeletedAt":null,"paper_url":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.16169","arxiv_id":"2508.16169","title":"A Scalable Hybrid Track-Before-Detect Tracking System: Application to Coastal Maritime Radar Surveillance","abstract":"Despite their theoretical advantages, track-before-detect (TBD) methods remain largely absent from real-world multi-target tracking applications due to their computational complexity and limited scalability. This paper presents a scalable hybrid tracking framework that combines a TBD multi-target tracking algorithm with a detection-based multi-target tracking algorithm for coastal radar surveillance. In particular, the approach uses an integrated existence Poisson histogram-probabilistic multi-hypothesis tracking (IE-PHPMHT)-based TBD module with a conventional Poisson multi-Bernoulli Mixture (PMBM) point tracker. The system processes raw radar data through land clutter suppression, cell-wise detection, and clustering-based feature extraction. High-threshold detections are used to track strong targets via the point tracker, while low-threshold detections are employed for adaptive birth in the TBD module, enabling early initiation and sustained tracking of weak or ambiguous targets. Validated using real X-band radar data from the Trondheim Fjord, Norway, the approach demonstrates robust multi-target tracking performance in a full-scale application with a large observation area under resource constraints, highlighting its suitability for operational deployment in complex maritime environments needed for coastal surveillance and to support autonomy.","short_abstract":"Despite their theoretical advantages, track-before-detect (TBD) methods remain largely absent from real-world multi-target tracking applications due to their computational complexity and limited scalability. This paper presents a scalable hybrid tracking framework that combines a TBD multi-target tracking algorithm wit...","url_abs":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.16169","url_pdf":"https://arxiv.org/pdf/2508.16169v1","authors":"[\"Lukas Herrmann\",\"Ángel F. García-Fernández\",\"Edmund F. Brekke\",\"Egil Eide\"]","published":"2025-08-22T07:45:34Z","proceeding":"eess.SP","tasks":"[\"eess.SP\"]","methods":"[]","has_code":false}