Ontological issues in higher levels of information fusion: user refinement of the fusion process

Abstract

Abstract : Real world data fusion systems process at the lowest level and combine data to a usable form for the human at the highest level. The functional role of the data fusion system is to provide timely and accurate data to the user. The focus of this paper is to address the user needs for a fusion system based on the ontological principles of becoming versus the historical opposite of being. Ontology is a question of the existence of the world, but also equally important in a philosophical argument is that of an epistemology - or a set of rules. We explore the higher-level purpose of fusion systems by setting up the world and emphasizing rules to guide a fusion system design that would allow for human refinement such as active reasoning, situation awareness, and pedigree consistency. Keywords: Fusion, Ontology, Epistemology, Pedigree, Situational Awareness