Data Fusion for Situation Monitoring, Incident Detection, Alert and Response Management

Book excerpt: Data Fusion is a very broad interdisciplinary technology domain. It provides techniques and methods for; integrating information from multiple sources and using the complementarities of these detections to derive maximum information about the phenomenon being observed; analyzing and deriving the meaning of these observations and predicting possible consequences of the observed state of the environment; selecting the best course of action; and controlling the actions. Here, the focus is on the more mature phase of data fusion, namely the detection and identification / classification of phenomena being observed and exploitation of the related methods for Security-Related Civil Science and Technology (SST) applications. It is necessary to; expand on the data fusion methodology pertinent to Situation Monitoring, Incident Detection, Alert and Response Management; discuss some related Cognitive Engineering and visualization issues; provide an insight into the architectures and methodologies for building a data fusion system; discuss fusion approaches to image exploitation with emphasis on security applications; discuss novel distributed tracking approaches as a necessary step of situation monitoring and incident detection; and provide examples of real situations, in which data fusion can enhance incident detection, prevention and response capability. In order to give a logical presentation of the data fusion material, first the general concepts are highlighted (Fusion Methodology, Human Computer Interactions and Systems and Architectures), closing with several applications (Data Fusion for Imagery, Tracking and Sensor Fusion and Applications and Opportunities for Fusion).