Exploitation of a priori knowledge for information fusion

The Information Fusion (IF) process is becoming increasingly more sophisticated, particularly through the incorporation of methods for high-level reasoning when applied to the situation analysis domain. A fundamental component of the IF process is a database (or databases) containing a priori knowledge that lists expected objects, behaviors of objects, and relationships between objects as well as all the possible attributes that can be inferred from measurements coming from a given sensor suite. We first present the basic concept of an existing support database (consisting of more than 2200 platforms) for Identity information fusion, and discuss its extension for higher-level fusion (e.g. situation and threat assessment). The database contains all the salient features needed for refining the identity of any target by the fusion of sensor information, and for addressing the situation and threat posed by groups of objects. The database is especially well suited for use in a Dempster-Shafer evidential reasoning scheme although it can also be used with Bayesian reasoning, if a priori probability distributions are known. Convincing results oil several realistic scenarios of Maritime Air Area Operations and Direct Fleet Support are presented. This paper then develops the advanced concept of a Knowledge Management and Exploitation Server (KNOWMES) to support the IF process, through the use of ontologies and heterogeneous knowledge sources, which are necessary for higher level fusion. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.