Distributed State Estimation for Heterogeneous Mobile Sensor Networks with Varying Nodes

On background of cooperative air combat, state estimation of aerial maneuvering target with multi-sensor cooperative reconnaissance is discussed in this paper. Multiple moving platforms equipped with different kinds of detectors construct heterogeneous mobile sensor networks. Graph theory is adopted to describe the communication topology of the networks. In consideration of detection range limit, the number of sensors participating in the detection changes over time. An interactive multiple model algorithm (IMM) is utilized for target motion modeling. The local observation information is processed by Cubature Information Filter (CIF). A weighted average consensus-based state estimation method for heterogeneous mobile sensor networks with varying nodes is put forward to fuse information from different sensors and obtain a consistent and precise tracking result. Moreover, the stability analysis of proposed method is provided detailed. Finally, numerical simulation results are given to illustrate the effectiveness of the theoretical results.