The life and death of ATR/sensor fusion and the hope for resurrection
Steven Kristofor Rogers, Charles Sadowski, Kenneth W. Bauer, Mark E. Oxley, Matthew Kabrisky, Adam Rogers, Stephen D. Mott · Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE · 2008
For over half a century, scientists and engineers have worked diligently to advance computational intelligence. One application of interest is how computational intelligence can bring value to our war fighters. Automatic Target Recognition (ATR) and sensor fusion efforts have fallen far short of the desired capabilities. In this article we review the capabilities requested by war fighters. When compared to our current capabilities, it is easy to conclude current Combat Identification (CID) as a Family of Systems (FoS) does a lousy job. The war fighter needed capable, operationalized ATR and sensor fusion systems ten years ago but it did not happen. The article reviews the war fighter needs and the current state of the art. The article then concludes by looking forward to where we are headed to provide the capabilities required.