Cooperative behaviour in multi-sensor systems

The paper describes an approach to heterogeneous sensor integration and information fusion that is based on the concept of cooperating machines. A multi-sensor system comprises sensors that may be grouped together on the same platform, or distributed geographically. Often it is desirable to upgrade the performance and capabilities of a sensor system. We present three models of sensor interaction and explain how such legacy systems may be modified, by incorporating mechanisms for cooperation. This leads to the concept of a community of cooperative machines. A method is outlined for representing the level of sensor interaction in the relation matrix, and propose that intelligent agents be used as a means of implementing this processing. The proposed method is applied to the problem of integrating the sensor sub-systems of an electronic support measures (ESM) system.