Data Fusion Handoff

As the military continues to move forward with an increased number of sensor and resulting fusion systems, it becomes necessary for these systems to be to communicate efficiently and effectively. This is especially important to the US Navy as they address the maritime domain awareness (MDA) problem. In this problem, there are a number of sensor and fusion systems that in the past have operated independent of one another. As the MDA problem grows in importance to our national security, it becomes necessary for these different fusion systems to exchange data in an efficient manner. Short of a complete redesign of all the systems, a solution is required to address the data fusion handoff problem. The goal of this effort is to provide the US Navy with a data fusion handoff capability that is able to operate within the existing systems while at the same time improving the overall performance across the entire federation of sensors and fusion nodes. We propose to accomplish this through the use of a Handoff Manager capability that will not replace existing fusion systems, but rather to augment them while at the same increasing scene understanding.