NATO ASI 2003
Data Fusion for Situation Monitoring, Incident Detection, Alert and Response Management
Motivation for this NATO ASI
This ASI "Data Fusion for Situation Monitoring, Incident Detection, Alert and Response Management" will mainly focus, as its name describes, on applying Data/Information Fusion for Security-Related Civil Science and Technology (SST) applications.
Data Fusion is a relatively young (less than 20 years) technology domain.
It provides techniques and methods for:
- integrating information from multiple sources and using the complementarity of these detections to derive maximum information about the phenomenon being observed;
- analyzing and deriving the meaning of these observations;
- selecting the best course of action; and
- controlling the actions.
Data Fusion can be used in applications covering all areas of SST, i.e.
- security and remediation of the environment in connection with all types of military activity;
- security-related nuclear, chemical and biological science and technology; and
- technologies for detection,
verification, disarmament and conversion.
Data Fusion will enhance the
ability for monitoring the environment for any anomalies to detect Nuclear,
Biological and Chemical (NBC) contamination, such as would be the case
in Irak, in the prevention of war through the enforcement of NATO resolution
1441.
Various sensors have been designed to detect some specific phenomena,
but not others. Data Fusion applications can combine synergically information
from many sensors, including data provided by satellites (or reconnaissance
aircraft), and contextual and encyclopaedic knowledge providing enhanced
ability to detect and recognize anomalies in the environment, compared
to conventional means.
Similarly Data Fusion technology can be applied to fuse remote sensing, geopolitical, intelligence, etc. data for detection and verification of disarmament and conversion. It can then be applied to provide decision support for response management.
One of the most critical actions of the remediation of the environment is the cleanup or removal of Ordnance and Explosives (OE)/Unexploded ordnance (UXO) from the environment after peace is established. There are numerous examples of how fusion of information from multiple sensors/sources increases the probability of detection and classification of UXOs.
At the present time very few
Universities (mostly in United States) offer graduate studies in Data
Fusion, and no undergraduate training is available. While there are research
centres in both NATO and Cooperation Partner (CP) countries involved in
research in the various disciplines used in Data Fusion, research in applications
of these technologies are significantly more advanced in NATO countries.
Hence the need to bring together leading researchers from NATO and CP
countries in this domain to develop an understanding for use of techniques
and methods of Data Fusion specifically for Security applications. This
will be achieved though this NATO ASI.
Content
by Elisa Shahbazian and
Pierre Valin
Form by Alana
Mark
Last updated 30 June 2003