ABEL: an Adaptive Belief Engine for Satellite Cluster Data Fusion

Data Fusion has emerged as a critical technology to be developed and deployed for military projects encompassing Space Situational Awareness, and Offensive/Defensive Counterspace to increase the warfighter's ability to identify, characterize, geo-locate and assess attacks. Fusion has also been identified as a major risk to be mitigated for the NASA/Air Force Joint Space Launch Initiative (SLI) Reusable Launch Vehicle program. The purpose of this Phase-II effort is to increase the readiness level of the technology studied in Phase I to a level suitable for acceptance by the community at large for onboard applications. The application of onboard Data Fusion extends from tactical sensor fusion used for recognition and targeting to diagnostics and recovery when integrated within a framework that includes a robust executive, cooperating intelligent agents and a real-time continuous planner. Pending an imminent award from NASA, Honeywell is committed to contribute a minimum of $500K with a focus towards fault management while sensor data management will be demonstrated for tactical applications using ABEL, the same real-time generic belief management engine for flight and other embedded applications.