A Modified Combination Rule of Evidence Theory

Evidence theory is widely used in data fusion systems. However, there exist some problems in its combination rule. A modified combination rule was presented. First, a global conflict is calculated by the weighted average of the local conflict. Then, a validity coefficient is defined to show the effect of the conflict evidence on the combination results. Compared with other combination rules, the proposed rule considers not only the consistency of evidence, but also the conflict of them. The numerical example shows that the new combination rule improves the reliability and rationality of the combination results.