  Data association is a key step within the multi-object tracking pipeline that
is notoriously challenging due to its combinatorial nature. A popular and
general way to formulate data association is as the NP-hard multidimensional
assignment problem (MDAP). Over the last few years, data-driven approaches to
assignment have become increasingly prevalent as these techniques have started
to mature. We focus this survey solely on learning algorithms for the
assignment step of multi-object tracking, and we attempt to unify various
methods by highlighting their connections to linear assignment as well as to
the MDAP. First, we review probabilistic and end-to-end optimization approaches
to data association, followed by methods that learn association affinities from
data. We then compare the performance of the methods presented in this survey,
and conclude by discussing future research directions.
