REAL-TIME DISTRIBUTED SENSOR FUSION FOR TIME-CRITICAL SENSOR READINGS

The problem of dynamic distributed sensor fusion, where time critical sensor readings are fused concurrently by physically isolated modules, is considered. A large number of critical applications including targ et tracking, remote sensing, and autonomous vehicle navigation can dep end on interpreting sensor readings in real time. Independent sensor m odules receive partially contradictory data, but their answers must ag ree within computed accuracy bounds. Real-time constraints cause addit ional uncertainty factors. The dynamic nature of this problem requires that the problem be viewed in four dimensions and processed efficient ly. We present a new method that robustly tolerates a limited number o f component failures. This method has complexity O(f(4)N log N), where N is the total number of modules and f is the number of faulty module s tolerated. Experimental results are given showing the merits of the proposed method, (C) 1997 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Eng ineers.