To
address the mixed uncertainty arising from concurrent numerical errors and
cognitive vagueness in multi-sensor track association for unmanned surface
vessels (USVs), we propose an association method that
jointly exploits interval numbers and interval two-dimensional two-tuple (2D2T)
linguistic semantics, termed the “Hybrid Uncertainty Modeling”
method. Measurement and system errors are
modeled as interval numbers, while expert confidence is encoded via interval
2D2T linguistic semantics to construct a hybrid numerical–linguistic support
measure. This support is then mapped to an interval basic probability
assignment (IBPA), and Dirichlet–Monte Carlo sampling is used to derive
adaptive weights for a dynamically weighted interval Dempster–Shafer (D–S)
fusion. We conduct 100 Monte Carlo simulations in a two-sensor, twenty-target
maritime scenario, benchmarking against nearest-neighbor, numerical-only,
linguistic-only, and equal-weight D–S baselines. The proposed approach markedly
improves pairwise target separability and decision stability, achieving an
average correct association rate of 96.15%, while simultaneously reducing
uncertainty and variance and enhancing robustness and interpretability. The
principal contributions are: (i) a unified representation and fusion framework
for numerical error and linguistic uncertainty, and (ii) an interval “support → IBPA” mapping coupled with a dynamically weighted interval D–S fusion tailored to mixed uncertainty.
ZHANG Yu, YAO Wenjun, LIU Tianshou
. Multi-Sensor Track Association Under Mixed
Uncertainty[J]. Journal of Shanghai Jiaotong University, 0
: 1
.
DOI: 10.16183/j.cnki.jsjtu.2025.359