The performance of Computer Aided Detection/Computer Aided Classification (CAD/CAC) Fusion algorithms on side-scan sonar images was evaluated using data taken at the Navy's Fleet Battle Exercise-Hotel (FBE-H) held in Panama City, Florida, in August 2000. A 2-of-3 binary fusion algorithm is shown to provide robust performance. The algorithm accepts the classification decisions and associated contact locations from three different CAD/CAC algorithms, clusters the contacts based on Euclidean distance, and then declares a valid target when a clustered contact is declared by at least 2 of the 3 individual algorithms. This simple binary fusion provided a 96% probability of correct classification at a false alarm rate of 0.14 false alarms per image per side (port or starboard). The performance represented a 3.8:1 reduction in false alarms over the best performing single CAD/CAC algorithm, with no loss in probability of correct classification.
