Fusion: General concepts and characteristics

The problem of combining pieces of information issued from several sources can be encountered in various fields of application. This paper aims at pre senting the different aspects of information fusion in different domains, s uch as databases, regulations, preferences, sensor fusion, etc., at a quite general level. We first present different types of information encountered in fusion problems, and different aims of the fusion process. Then we focu s on representation issues which are relevant when discussing fusion proble ms. An important issue is then addressed, the handling of conflicting infor mation. We briefly review different domains where fusion is involved, and d escribe how the fusion problems are stated in each domain. Since the term f usion can have different, more or less broad, meanings, we specify later so me terminology with respect to related problems, that might be included in a broad meaning of fusion. Finally we briefly discuss the difficult aspects of validation and evaluation. (C) 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.