Information fusion using Bayesian multinets
Peter Bladon, Richard J. Hall · Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE · 2004
Bayesian networks are a powerful and convenient way of encoding expert knowledge. They can be used to infer such "high-level’ variables as "threat’ or "intent’, given observations, background and intelligence data. However, their usefulness depends on the model, i.e. the Bayesian network used for inference. We demonstrate how Bayesian multinets can be used to simplify the representation of certain complex domains, allowing a decomposition into simpler models that are conditionally independent given a class variable. We illustrate this concept using a threat assessment application, in which each component is specialised to a different class of threat and show how this simplifies model construction and target identification.