Patent ID: 7035764

Claim:
A computer-implemented process for tracking an object state over time using particle filter sensor fusion and a plurality of logical sensor modules, comprising for each iteration of the tracking process: an inputting step for inputting an object state estimate from each logical sensor module as determined by an object state tracker of that sensor module, wherein the object state estimates are in the form of a Gaussian distribution; a fusing step for combining the object state estimate distributions to form a proposal distribution; a sampling step for sampling the proposal distribution to produce a series of particles which are provided to each of the logical sensor modules; an estimating step preformed by an object state verifier of each logical sensor module for respectively estimating the likelihood of each provided particle; a second inputting step for inputting the likelihood estimates from each logical sensor; a computing step for computing a combined likelihood model for the particles from the likelihood estimates; a second computing step for computing a weight for each particle from the combined likelihood model, the proposal distribution, an object dynamics model which models the changes in the object state over time, and the weight associated with a corresponding particle in the last tracking iteration; and a third computing step for computing a final estimate of the object state for the current tracking iteration using the particles and the particle weights, wherein said final object state estimate takes the form of a distribution.