Localization and Identification of Multiple Objects with Heterogeneous Sensor Data by EM Algorithm

In this paper, we describe a formulation and EM method to fuse heterogeneous sensor data for localizing and identifying objects. The heterogeneous sensors are such as cameras, RFID readers and range finders. They are different from each other in degree of accuracy of localizing and identifying objects. Errors in identifying objects is a problem which makes localization difficult. We formulate a localization and identification problem with a hidden variable R which describes associations between objects and observed values. We estimate objects' positions and the association vector R by an EM algorithm. We illustrate the algorithm in a case of using simulated cameras and RFID readers. Experimental results show that our method can localize and identify objects more accurately than other methods without the R