Critical elements of future exoatmospheric interceptor systems are intelligent processing techniques which can effectively combine sensor data from disparate sensors. This paper summarizes the impact on discrimination performance of several feature and classifier fusion techniques, which can be used as part of the overall IP approach. These techniques are implemented either within the fused sensor discrimination testbed, or off-line as building blocks that can be modified to assess differing fusion approaches, classifiers and their impact on interceptor requirements. Several optional approaches for combining the data at the different levels, i.e., feature and classifier levels, are discussed in this paper and a comparison of performance results is shown. Approaches yielding promising results must still operate within the timeline and memory constraints on board the interceptor. A hybrid fusion approach is implemented at the feature level through the use of feature sets input to specific classifiers. The output of the fusion process contains an estimate of the confidence in the data and the discrimination decisions. The confidence in the data and decisions can be used in real time to dynamically select different sensor feature data, classifies, or to request additional sensor data on specific objects that have not been confidently identified as 'lethal' or 'non-legal'. However, dynamic selection requires an understanding of the impact of various combinations of feature sets and classifier options. Accordingly, the paper presents the various tools for exploring these options and illustrates their usage with data sets generated to realistically simulate the world of Ballistic Missile Defense interceptor applications.

Date Published: 12 March 1999
PDF: 11 pages
Proc. SPIE 3719, Sensor Fusion: Architectures, Algorithms, and Applications III, (12 March 1999); doi: 10.1117/12.341332

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 3719:
Sensor Fusion: Architectures, Algorithms, and Applications III
Belur V. Dasarathy, Editor(s)