Bearing-Only Tracking and Circumnavigation of a Fast Time-Varied Velocity Target Utilising an LSTM

Bearing-only tracking, localisation, and circumnavigation is a problem in which a single or a group of agents attempts to track a target while circumnavigating it at a fixed distance using only bearing measurements. While previous studies have addressed scenarios involving stationary targets or those moving with an unknown constant velocity, the challenge of accurately tracking a target moving with a time-varying velocity remains open. This paper presents an approach utilising a Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) based estimator for predicting the target's position and velocity. We also introduce a corresponding control strategy. When evaluated against previously proposed estimation and circumnavigation approaches, our approach demonstrates significantly lower control and estimation errors across various time-varying velocity scenarios. Additionally, we illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method in tracking targets with a double integrator nonholonomic system dynamics that mimic real-world systems.

@article{torok2025_2504.19463,
  title={ Bearing-Only Tracking and Circumnavigation of a Fast Time-Varied Velocity Target Utilising an LSTM },
  author={ Mitchell Torok and Mohammad Deghat and Yang Song },
  journal={arXiv preprint arXiv:2504.19463},
  year={ 2025 }
}