PROCESSING ALGORITHMS FOR SENSORS FUSION IN VISIBLE/IR/RADAR

THE OBJECTIVE OF THIS RESEARCH IS TO DEMONSTRATE THE FEASIBILITY OF FUSING DATA OBTAINED SIMULTANEOUSLY FROM VISIBLE, INFRARED AND RADAR SENSORS, TO PROVIDE A HERETOFORE UNOBTAINABLE SURVEILLANCE CAPABILITY.THE DIFFICULTIES ASSOCAITED WITH SENSOR FUSION WHICH WILL BE ADDRESSEDINCLUDE THE DIFFERENT FIELDS OF VIEW, DIFFERENT MEASUREMENTS, DIFFERENT RESOLUTIONS, AND DIFFERENT POSITIONS AND VELOCITIES OF THE SENSORS, AS WELL AS ACCOUNTIG FOR SCENE REGISTRATION ERRORS. ALPHATECH PROPOSES TO ADDRESS THESE PROBLEMS BY FIRST FORMULATING THE FUSION PROBLEM IN A MATHEMATICALLY CONSISTENT THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK, AND BY THEN ADDING THE HEURISTIC TECHNIQUES REQUIRED FOR A PRACTICAL IMPLEMENTATION. OUR APPROACH TO FUSION IS A MODEL-BASED APPROACH; THEREFORE, WE WILL FIRST DEVELOP MODELS OF THE SENSORS AND OF THE TARGETS OF INTEREST. THE NEXT STEP WILL BE TO EXTEND OUR EXISTING MULTISENSOR FUSION ALGORITHM, TAILORING IT TO THE SPECIFIC PROBLEM AT HAND. FINALLY, WE PLAN TO DEMONSTRATE THE ABILITY TO PERFORM DATA FUSION WITH SPATIALLY AND SPECTRALLY DIVERSE SENSORS, AND TO SHOW THE SYNERGISTIC BENEFITS OBTAINED BY FUSION IN DETECTING AND TRACKING DIFFICULT-TO-OBSERVE TARGETS.