Multi-sensor fusion development
Sheldon F. Bish, Matthew Rohrer, Peter Scheffel, Kelly W. Bennett · Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE · 2016
The U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL) and McQ Inc. are developing a generic sensor fusion architecture that involves several diverse processes working in combination to create a dynamic task-oriented, real-time informational capability. Processes include sensor data collection, persistent and observational data storage, and multimodal and multisensor fusion that includes the flexibility to modify the fusion program rules for each mission. Such a fusion engine lends itself to a diverse set of sensing applications and architectures while using open-source software technologies. In this paper, we describe a fusion engine architecture that combines multimodal and multi-sensor fusion within an Open Standard for Unattended Sensors (OSUS) framework. The modular, plug-and-play architecture of OSUS allows future fusion plugin methodologies to have seamless integration into the fusion architecture at the conceptual and implementation level. Although beyond the scope of this paper, this architecture allows for data and information manipulation and filtering for an array of applications.