Issues in modelling sensor and data fusion in agent based simulation of air operations

Abstract

Sensorfusion is often not the focus of opera- tional analysis, but the increased connectivity and infonna- tion sharing of a network enabled wagare environment and plagonns with sophisticated on-board sensor fusion capa- bilities makes it an important consideration for military an- alysts. Modelling sensor fusion within a simulation of large- scale military operations is complicated because the sen- sor fusion processes under consideration are not conjned to the mission systems of the various platforms. The cog- nitive processing of sensor data by air-crews and the entire command and control chain are as important. Agent based techniques can offer architectural modelling options that, as well as providing flexibility in meeting the requirements of simulation developers, can address issues raised by the wider sensor fusion communig. This paper broadens accepted definitions of sensor fu- sion to characterise it as a socio-technical problem requir- ing that attention be given to the human users of sensor fusion systems as well as the technical aspects internal to the mission systems. A set of models thar illustrates this approach is presented. This modelling approach supports the adoption of intelligent agent techniques and technolo- gies. Intelligent agent architectures for modelling sensor fusion together with insights into particular implementa- tions that show promise in addressing the needs of the sim- ulation community and may offer insights for developers of sensor fusion systems.