Performance of State Estimation and Fusion with Elliptical Motion Constraints

We consider tracking of a target with known elliptical nonlinear constraints on its motion dynamics. The state estimates are generated by sensors and sent over long-haul links to a remote fusion center for fusion. We show that the constraints can be projected onto the ellipse and hence incorporated into the estimation and fusion process. In particular, two methods based on (i) direct connection to the center, and (ii) shortest distance to the ellipse are discussed. A tracking example is used to illustrate the tracking performance using projection-based methods with various fusers in a lossy long-haul tracking environment.