Using Exponential Mixture Models for Suboptimal Distributed Data Fusion

In this paper we investigate the use of Exponential Mixture Densities (EMDs) as suboptimal update rules for distributed data fusion. We show that EMDs have a pointwise bound "from below" on the minimum value of the probability distribution. However, the distributions are not bounded from above and thus can be interpreted as a fusion operation.

[1]  Inseok Hwang,et al.  A distributed multiple-target identity management algorithm in sensor networks , 2004, 2004 43rd IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC) (IEEE Cat. No.04CH37601).

[2]  Tom Heskes,et al.  Selecting Weighting Factors in Logarithmic Opinion Pools , 1997, NIPS.

[3]  Hugh Durrant-Whyte,et al.  Decentralised data fusion with particles , 2005 .

[4]  M. Hurley An information theoretic justification for covariance intersection and its generalization , 2002, Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Information Fusion. FUSION 2002. (IEEE Cat.No.02EX5997).

[5]  Stelios C. A. Thomopoulos,et al.  Distributed Fusion Architectures and Algorithms for Target Tracking , 1997, Proc. IEEE.

[6]  Simon J. Julier,et al.  An Empirical Study into the Use of Chernoff Information for Robust, Distributed Fusion of Gaussian Mixture Models , 2006, 2006 9th International Conference on Information Fusion.

[7]  Hugh F. Durrant-Whyte,et al.  A Fully Decentralized Multi-Sensor System For Tracking and Surveillance , 1993, Int. J. Robotics Res..

[8]  Thomas M. Cover,et al.  Elements of Information Theory , 2005 .

[9]  Martin E. Hellman,et al.  Probability of error, equivocation, and the Chernoff bound , 1970, IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory.

[10]  Anand Ganesh Dabak A geometry for detection theory , 1993 .

[11]  S. Grime,et al.  Data fusion in decentralized sensor networks , 1994 .

[12]  Ronald P. S. Mahler,et al.  Optimal/robust distributed data fusion: a unified approach , 2000, SPIE Defense + Commercial Sensing.