Evolutionary Query Processing , Fusion and Visualization

An evolutionary query is a query that may change in time and/or space. For example when an emergency management worker moves around in a disaster area, a predefined query can be executed repeatedly to evaluate the surrounding area in order to find out objects of threat. Depending upon the position of the person or agent and the time of the day, the query can be modified either manually or automatically. A novel approach for sensorbased evolutionary query processing is described, taking into consideration query optimization because most sensors can generate large quantities of spatial information within short periods of time. The sensor dependency tree is used to facilitate query optimization. Through query refinement one or more sensor may provide feedback information to the other sensors. Combined with visualization, the approach facilitates multi-sensor information fusion in dynamic environments.