  This paper investigates the problem of distributed target tracking via
underwater wireless sensor networks (UWSNs) with fading channels. The
degradation of signal quality due to wireless channel fading can significantly
impact network reliability and subsequently reduce the tracking accuracy. To
address this issue, we propose a modified distributed unscented Kalman filter
(DUKF) named DUKF-Fc, which takes into account the effects of measurement
fluctuation and transmission failure induced by channel fading. The channel
estimation error is also considered when designing the estimator and a
sufficient condition is established to ensure the stochastic boundedness of the
estimation error. The proposed filtering scheme is versatile and possesses wide
applicability to numerous real-world scenarios, e.g., tracking a maneuvering
underwater target with acoustic sensors. Simulation results demonstrate the
effectiveness of the proposed filtering algorithm. In addition, considering the
constraints of network energy resources, the issue of investigating a trade-off
between tracking performance and energy consumption is discussed accordingly.
