This paper presents a novel distributed framework for multi-target tracking with an efficient data association computation. A decentralized representation of trackers' motion and association variables is adopted. Considering the interleaved nature of data association and tracker filtering, the multi-target tracking is formulated as a missing data problem, and the solution is found by the proposed variational EM algorithm. We analytically show that 1) the posteriori distributions of trackers' motions (the real interests in terms of tracking applications) can be effectively computed in the E-step of the EM iterations, and 2) the solution of trackers' association variables can be pursued under a derived graph-based discrete optimization formulation, thus efficiently estimated in the M-step by the recently emerging graph optimization algorithms. The proposed approach is very general such that sophisticated data association priori and likelihood function can be easily incorporated. This general framework is tested with both simulation data and real world surveillance video. The reported qualitative and quantitative studies verify the effectiveness and low computational cost of the algorithm.
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