Modeling of perceptual systems : a sensor fusion model with active perception

Abstract

During the last decades the research in the sensor fusion area has mainly been focused on fusion methods and feature selection methods. A possible further development in this area is to incorporate a process referred to as active perception. This means that the system is able to manipulate the sensing mechanisms to create a focus on selected information in the surrounding environment. This process may also be able to handle the feature selection process with respect to which features to be used and/or the number of features to use. This paper presents a model that contains a decision system based on active perception integrated with previous sensor fusion algorithms. The human body has perhaps one of the most advanced perceptual processing systems. The human perception process can be divided into sensation (measurement collection) and perception (interpret the surroundings). During the sensation process a huge amount of data is collected from different sensors that reflect the environment. The information has to be interpreted in an effective way, i.e. in the fusion process. The interpretation together with a decision system to control the sensors to focus on important information will correspond to the (active) perception process. The model presented in this paper capitalizes on the properties presented by the biological counterpart to achieve more human-like processes for a sensor fusion. Finally, the paper presents the testing of the model in two examples. The applications used have a safety approach of fire indication, identification and decision-making. The goal is to enlarge a conventional fire alarm system to not only detect fire, but also to propose different actions for a human in a dangerous area for example.