Multisensor Fusion and Integration: A Review on Approaches and Its Applications in Mechatronics

The objective of this paper is to review the theories and approaches of multisensor fusion and integration (MFI) with its application in mechatronics. MFI helps the system perceiving changes of the environment and monitoring the system itself. Since each individual sensor has its own inherent defects and limitations, MFI merges the redundant information acquired by multiple sensors synergistically to provide a more accurate perception and make an optimal decision in further. The wide application spectrum of MFI in mechatronics includes the industrial automation, the development of intelligent robots, military applications, biomedical applications, etc. In this paper, the architecture and algorithms of MFI are reviewed, and some implementation examples in industrial automation and robotic applications are presented. Furthermore, sensor fusion methods at different levels, namely, estimation methods, classification methods and inference methods, the most frequently used algorithms in previous researches with their advantages and limitations are summarized. Applications of MFI in robotics and mechatronics are discussed. Future perspectives of MFI deployment are included in the concluding remarks.