Closing the Ivory Validation Gates: A Historical Analysis of Achkasov’s Data Association Filters

We examine prototypical versions of the probabilistic data association (PDA) filter and the joint PDA filter developed in the Soviet Union in 1972. These filters, created by Y.S. Achkasov, are previously undiscussed in the conventional English-language multitarget tracking (MTT) literature, despite being translated into English from their original Russian soon after publication. We place this work in its appropriate historical context and demonstrate the equivalence of the proto-(J)PDA with the conventional forms of these algorithms, as well as discuss areas where this work anticipates multiple decades of MTT filter development.