Variational Bayesian Inference-Based Maximum Correntropy Kalman Filtering for Visual Tracking With Unknown Process and Measurement Noise

The paper proposes a new Kalman filtering (KF) algorithm called VBI-MCKF that combines the variational Bayesian inference (VBI)-based KF algorithm and the maximum correntropy KF (MCKF) for visual tracking problem. The VBI-based KF algorithm works to estimate the unknown measurement noise covariance matrix (MNCM) and process noise covariance matrix (PNCM), and the MCKF works to deal with non-Gaussian process noise and measurement noise. In order to cater for the visual tracking target scenario, where the MNCM and PNCM are unknown and non-Gaussian, we modify the VBI-based KF algorithm to work for suddenly occurring outliers and modify the MCKF work for small bandwidth. Simulations show that the proposed VBI-MCKF algorithm performs well when both covariance matrices of Gaussian process noise and non-Gaussian measurement noise are unknown or inaccurate.