Vehicle Tracking System

ISTI has built a vehicle tracking system that overcomes the challenges with acoustic tracking and localization of small ground and airborne vehicles using low-cost wireless sensor nodes. The sensor-level sub-band feature extraction and streaming of the encoded data enables real-time direction of arrival (DoA) estimation and tracking even for large wireless sensor networks with limited bandwidth. Benefits include: accurate tracking of single or multiple closely spaced electric or gas driven small planes and UAVs, collaborative decision-making, target localization and classification, robustness to sensor node loss, flexibility and deployment ease. The interface gives users complete control over the entire sensor network, including the ability to monitor the azimuth and elevation angles to the targets in real-time.



System Features

ISTI’s patented algorithms enable real-time and accurate tracking of small ground and low flying airborne vehicles at altitudes of up to 100m and ranges of up to 300m using their acoustic signatures. A novel wideband DoA estimation algorithm provides azimuth and elevation angle estimates to the targets and displays the results on the system GUI in real-time.

A novel robust collaborative target localization algorithm uses the estimated DoAs to locate the moving vehicles.

Low-cost sensor nodes with associated synchronization and communication utilities allow for accurate tracking without GPS.

A user-friendly GUI for sensor network data analysis provides real-time azimuth and elevation angle monitoring and localization.