Tracking and Sensor Fusion in Direction of Arrival Estimation Using Optimal Mass Transport

Abstract

In this work, we propose new methods for information fusion and tracking in direction of arrival (DOA) estimation by utilizing an optimal mass transport framework. Sensor array measurements in DOA estimation may not be consistent due to misalignments and calibration errors. By using optimal mass transport as a notion of distance for combining the information obtained from all the sensor arrays, we obtain an approach that can prevent aliasing and is robust to array misalignments. For the case of sequential tracking, the proposed method updates the DOA estimate using the new measurements and an optimal mass transport prior. In the case of sensor fusion, information from several, individual, sensor arrays is combined using a barycenter formulation of optimal mass transport.