Technical Survey and Forecast for Information Fusion
Abstract
This paper summarizes the results of a study forecasting the development of information fusion technology over the next 20 years. The study was carried out on behalf of the Swedish Armed Forces as part of an effort to estimate future developments in technology areas of high relevance for the development of a Network-Based Defence system. Information fusion is still in the research stage and it is not yet clear how its basic methodology should be structured. The combined effect of rapid technical development in sensor technology, the establishment of new global communications technologies, and the improvement in the price-performance ratio for computer systems forms the technological background of the efforts by a growing number of nations to create a Network-Based Defence (NBD). This move towards NBD implies that military decision makers will receive ever increasing amounts of information to cope with. Information fusion is about providing support for the task of weighing together and interpreting this information. New and rapidly improving capabilities to automatically collect large sets of data, and to move large sets of data across communications networks, have raised new questions regarding opportunities to automatically sort, classify, and interpret data to form an operational picture. Such data were previously fused to an operational picture through time-consuming manual analyses and discussions. As the availability of sensor data explodes as a result of technological advances, this manual fusion process becomes a bottleneck to establishing the operational picture. This paper discusses technology and systems for information fusion (IF); IF terminology and processes, including situational assessment, the aggregation problem, threat assessment, and adaptation and resource allocation; the automation of information fusion; and forecasting. Twenty-one briefing charts summarize the presentation. (5 refs.)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Mar 01, 2004
- Accession Number
- ADA428556
Entities
People
- Per Svensson
Organizations
- Swedish Defence Research Agency