Underwater Cooperative Target Tracking Using Maritime Cross-Domain Swarms: Key Technologies and Future Perspectives

With the continuous advancement of marine development, underwater target tracking, as a foundational technology, enables continuous navigation of unmanned swarms toward the target and plays a crucial role in various applications such as maritime search and rescue, ocean monitoring, and seabed resource exploration. Meanwhile, maritime cross-domain swarms composed of heterogeneous platforms, including unmanned aerial, surface, and underwater vehicles, demonstrate significant potential in achieving efficient detection and tracking of underwater targets through information interaction and autonomous cooperation, which, compared to underwater single-domain swarms, holds significant potential for improving the effectiveness of perception and operation in complex marine environments. However, current technologies still face challenges including insufficient sensing capabilities, immature cross-domain cooperation mechanisms, and compromised environmental adaptability. To address these issues, this paper first analyzes the development trends of underwater target tracking. Subsequently, focusing on four fundamental modules, localization, tracking, communcation, and planning, we summarize existing research difficulties and review domestic as well as international research progress. Finally, emerging concepts, such as co-design, and frontier requirements are discussed, aiming to provide references for advancing underwater cooperative target tracking technologies with cross-domain swarms.