A knowledge based approach to information fusion using combinability relationships

We consider fusion of imprecise information. The concept of a combinability relationship is introduced to enable the inclusion in the fusion process of information about the appropriateness of fusing different elements from the observation space. This relationship allows for the use of an expert knowledge base, containing information about the domain of the particular problem, in the fusion process and leads to a more intelligent aggregation. We show that if we use a combinability relationship that only allows fusion of identical elements then the only idempotent fusion of any collection of fuzzy observations is their intersection.