A Reliability-Based Multisensor Data Fusion with Application in Target Classification

The theory of belief functions has been extensively utilized in many practical applications involving decision making. One such application is the classification of target based on the pieces of information extracted from the individual attributes describing the target. Each piece of information is usually modeled as the basic probability assignment (BPA), also known as the mass function. The determination of the BPA has remained an open problem. Although fuzzy membership functions such as triangular and Gaussian functions have been widely used to model the likelihood estimation function based on the historical data, it has been observed that less emphasis has been placed on the impact of the spread of the membership function on the decision accuracy of the reasoning process. Conflict in the combination of BPAs may arise due to poor characterization of fuzzy membership functions to induce belief mass. In this work, we propose a multisensor data fusion within the framework of belief theory for target classification where shape/spread of the membership function is adjusted during the training/modeling stage to improve on the classification accuracy while removing the need for the computation of the credibility. To further enhance the performance of the proposed method, the reliability factor is deployed not only to effectively manage the possible conflict among participating bodies of evidence for better decision accuracy but also to reduce the number of sources for improved efficiency. The effectiveness of the proposed method was evaluated using both the real-world and the artificial datasets.