You seem to have javascript disabled. Please note that many of the page functionalities won't work as expected without javascript enabled.

Search for Articles:

Title / Keyword

Author / Affiliation / Email

Journal

Article Type

Advanced Search

Section

Special Issue

Volume

Issue

Number

Page

Submit to Sensors Review for Sensors Propose a Special Issue

Journal Browser

► Journal Browser

Advances in Multi-Sensor Information Fusion: Theory and Applications

Special Issue Editors
Special Issue Information
Keywords
Published Papers

A special issue of Sensors (ISSN 1424-8220). This special issue belongs to the section "Sensor Networks".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 July 2016) | Viewed by 216491

Share This Special Issue

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Xue-Bo Jin

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

Artificial Intelligence College, Beijing Technology and Business University, Beijing 10048, China
Interests: multisensor fusion; statistical signal processing; video/image processing; Bayesian theory; time series analysis; artificial intelligence; target tracking and dynamic analysis
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Prof. Dr. Feng-Bao Yang

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

North University of China, Taiyuan 030051, China
Interests: infrared image processing, multi-source and heterogeneous image registration, recognition and fusion, multi-sensor uncertain information processing, possibility theory and evidence theory
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Prof. Dr. Shuli Sun

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

School of Electronics Engineering, Heilongjiang University, Heilongjiang 150080, China
Interests: information fusion and sensor networks, state estimation, signal processing
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Prof. Dr. Hong Wei

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

Department of computer science, University of Reading, Reading RG6 6AY, UK
Interests: intelligent computer vision and multisensor data fusion, and its applications in remotely sensed images and in face recognition (biometric)
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Information fusion technique can integrate a large amount of data and knowledge representing the same real-world object and obtain a consistent, accurate and useful representation of that object. The data may be independent or redundant and can be obtained by different sensors at the same time or at different times. A suitable combination of investigative methods can substantially increase the profit of information in comparison with that from a single sensor.

Multi-sensor information fusion has been a key issue in sensor research since the 1970s and it has been applied in many fields, such as geospatial information systems, business intelligence, oceanography, discovery science, intelligent transport systems, and wireless sensor networks, etc. Recently, thanks to the vast development in senor and computer memory technologies, more and more sensors are being used in practical systems and a large amount of measurement data are recorded and restored, which may actually be the “time series big data”. For example, sensors in machines and process control industries can generate a lot of data, which have real, actionable business value. The fusion of these data can greatly improve productivity through digitization.

The classical multi-sensor information fusion technique can deal with a limited amount of sensor data effectively, and can even obtain optimal results in real time. However, regarding “big series time data”, we have to consider how to deal with the mass of sensor data in real-time processes, and how to model the multisensor system based on the huge amount of data, etc. The development of sensor systems has created many new challenges in multi-sensor information fusion theory and its application. Therefore, the innovations of information fusion still need to be studiously pursued in future research works.

The goal of this special issue is to report on innovative ideas and solutions for the methods of multi-sensor information fusion in the emerging applications era, focusing on development, adoption and applications.

Prof. Dr. Xue-bo Jin
Prof. Dr. Feng-bao Yang
Prof. Dr. Shuli Sun
Prof. Dr. Hong Wei
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sensors is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

Tracking by the big data from multi-sensor system
Information (speech or image, etc.) fusion processing
Knowledge cognitive based on multi-sensor system
Fusion decision theory
Fusion estimation and control algorithms
Modeling by the big data from multi-sensor system
The structure and/or levels of multi-sensor fusion system
Uncertain information integration
Possibility theory and other reasoning methods
Remote sensing data processing

Published Papers (38 papers)

Download All Papers

Research

494 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Energy-Based Acoustic Source Localization Methods: A Survey

by Wei Meng and Wendong Xiao

Sensors 2017, 17(2), 376; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17020376 - 15 Feb 2017

Cited by 25 | Viewed by 5046

Energy-based source localization is an important problem in wireless sensor networks (WSNs), which has been studied actively in the literature. Numerous localization algorithms, e.g., maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) and nonlinear-least-squares (NLS) methods, have been reported. In the literature, there are relevant review papers [...] Read more.

Energy-based source localization is an important problem in wireless sensor networks (WSNs), which has been studied actively in the literature. Numerous localization algorithms, e.g., maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) and nonlinear-least-squares (NLS) methods, have been reported. In the literature, there are relevant review papers for localization in WSNs, e.g., for distance-based localization. However, not much work related to energy-based source localization is covered in the existing review papers. Energy-based methods are proposed and specially designed for a WSN due to its limited sensor capabilities. This paper aims to give a comprehensive review of these different algorithms for energy-based single and multiple source localization problems, their merits and demerits and to point out possible future research directions. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Multi-Sensor Information Fusion: Theory and Applications)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

1104 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Novel Sensor Selection and Power Allocation Algorithm for Multiple-Target Tracking in an LPI Radar Network

by Ji She, Fei Wang and Jianjiang Zhou

Sensors 2016, 16(12), 2193; https://doi.org/10.3390/s16122193 - 21 Dec 2016

Cited by 25 | Viewed by 4783

Radar networks are proven to have numerous advantages over traditional monostatic and bistatic radar. With recent developments, radar networks have become an attractive platform due to their low probability of intercept (LPI) performance for target tracking. In this paper, a joint sensor selection [...] Read more.

Radar networks are proven to have numerous advantages over traditional monostatic and bistatic radar. With recent developments, radar networks have become an attractive platform due to their low probability of intercept (LPI) performance for target tracking. In this paper, a joint sensor selection and power allocation algorithm for multiple-target tracking in a radar network based on LPI is proposed. It is found that this algorithm can minimize the total transmitted power of a radar network on the basis of a predetermined mutual information (MI) threshold between the target impulse response and the reflected signal. The MI is required by the radar network system to estimate target parameters, and it can be calculated predictively with the estimation of target state. The optimization problem of sensor selection and power allocation, which contains two variables, is non-convex and it can be solved by separating power allocation problem from sensor selection problem. To be specific, the optimization problem of power allocation can be solved by using the bisection method for each sensor selection scheme. Also, the optimization problem of sensor selection can be solved by a lower complexity algorithm based on the allocated powers. According to the simulation results, it can be found that the proposed algorithm can effectively reduce the total transmitted power of a radar network, which can be conducive to improving LPI performance. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Multi-Sensor Information Fusion: Theory and Applications)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

3790 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Context-Aware Fusion of RGB and Thermal Imagery for Traffic Monitoring

by Thiemo Alldieck, Chris H. Bahnsen and Thomas B. Moeslund

Sensors 2016, 16(11), 1947; https://doi.org/10.3390/s16111947 - 18 Nov 2016

Cited by 25 | Viewed by 6053

In order to enable a robust 24-h monitoring of traffic under changing environmental conditions, it is beneficial to observe the traffic scene using several sensors, preferably from different modalities. To fully benefit from multi-modal sensor output, however, one must fuse the data. This [...] Read more.

In order to enable a robust 24-h monitoring of traffic under changing environmental conditions, it is beneficial to observe the traffic scene using several sensors, preferably from different modalities. To fully benefit from multi-modal sensor output, however, one must fuse the data. This paper introduces a new approach for fusing color RGB and thermal video streams by using not only the information from the videos themselves, but also the available contextual information of a scene. The contextual information is used to judge the quality of a particular modality and guides the fusion of two parallel segmentation pipelines of the RGB and thermal video streams. The potential of the proposed context-aware fusion is demonstrated by extensive tests of quantitative and qualitative characteristics on existing and novel video datasets and benchmarked against competing approaches to multi-modal fusion. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Multi-Sensor Information Fusion: Theory and Applications)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

2024 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Multi-Sensor Fusion with Interaction Multiple Model and Chi-Square Test Tolerant Filter

by Chun Yang, Arash Mohammadi and Qing-Wei Chen

Sensors 2016, 16(11), 1835; https://doi.org/10.3390/s16111835 - 02 Nov 2016

Cited by 33 | Viewed by 6554

Motivated by the key importance of multi-sensor information fusion algorithms in the state-of-the-art integrated navigation systems due to recent advancements in sensor technologies, telecommunication, and navigation systems, the paper proposes an improved and innovative fault-tolerant fusion framework. An integrated navigation system is considered [...] Read more.

Motivated by the key importance of multi-sensor information fusion algorithms in the state-of-the-art integrated navigation systems due to recent advancements in sensor technologies, telecommunication, and navigation systems, the paper proposes an improved and innovative fault-tolerant fusion framework. An integrated navigation system is considered consisting of four sensory sub-systems, i.e., Strap-down Inertial Navigation System (SINS), Global Navigation System (GPS), the Bei-Dou2 (BD2) and Celestial Navigation System (CNS) navigation sensors. In such multi-sensor applications, on the one hand, the design of an efficient fusion methodology is extremely constrained specially when no information regarding the system’s error characteristics is available. On the other hand, the development of an accurate fault detection and integrity monitoring solution is both challenging and critical. The paper addresses the sensitivity issues of conventional fault detection solutions and the unavailability of a precisely known system model by jointly designing fault detection and information fusion algorithms. In particular, by using ideas from Interacting Multiple Model (IMM) filters, the uncertainty of the system will be adjusted adaptively by model probabilities and using the proposed fuzzy-based fusion framework. The paper also addresses the problem of using corrupted measurements for fault detection purposes by designing a two state propagator chi-square test jointly with the fusion algorithm. Two IMM predictors, running in parallel, are used and alternatively reactivated based on the received information form the fusion filter to increase the reliability and accuracy of the proposed detection solution. With the combination of the IMM and the proposed fusion method, we increase the failure sensitivity of the detection system and, thereby, significantly increase the overall reliability and accuracy of the integrated navigation system. Simulation results indicate that the proposed fault tolerant fusion framework provides superior performance over its traditional counterparts. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Multi-Sensor Information Fusion: Theory and Applications)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

2083 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Information Fusion of Conflicting Input Data

by Uwe Mönks, Helene Dörksen, Volker Lohweg and Michael Hübner

Sensors 2016, 16(11), 1798; https://doi.org/10.3390/s16111798 - 29 Oct 2016

Cited by 24 | Viewed by 6049

Sensors, and also actuators or external sources such as databases, serve as data sources in order to realise condition monitoring of industrial applications or the acquisition of characteristic parameters like production speed or reject rate. Modern facilities create such a large amount of [...] Read more.

Sensors, and also actuators or external sources such as databases, serve as data sources in order to realise condition monitoring of industrial applications or the acquisition of characteristic parameters like production speed or reject rate. Modern facilities create such a large amount of complex data that a machine operator is unable to comprehend and process the information contained in the data. Thus, information fusion mechanisms gain increasing importance. Besides the management of large amounts of data, further challenges towards the fusion algorithms arise from epistemic uncertainties (incomplete knowledge) in the input signals as well as conflicts between them. These aspects must be considered during information processing to obtain reliable results, which are in accordance with the real world. The analysis of the scientific state of the art shows that current solutions fulfil said requirements at most only partly. This article proposes the multilayered information fusion system MACRO (multilayer attribute-based conflict-reducing observation) employing the μBalTLCS (fuzzified balanced two-layer conflict solving) fusion algorithm to reduce the impact of conflicts on the fusion result. The performance of the contribution is shown by its evaluation in the scope of a machine condition monitoring application under laboratory conditions. Here, the MACRO system yields the best results compared to state-of-the-art fusion mechanisms. The utilised data is published and freely accessible. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Multi-Sensor Information Fusion: Theory and Applications)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

1065 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Novel Group Decision-Making Method Based on Sensor Data and Fuzzy Information

by Yu-Ting Bai, Bai-Hai Zhang, Xiao-Yi Wang, Xue-Bo Jin, Ji-Ping Xu, Ting-Li Su and Zhao-Yang Wang

Sensors 2016, 16(11), 1799; https://doi.org/10.3390/s16111799 - 28 Oct 2016

Cited by 9 | Viewed by 3883

Algal bloom is a typical phenomenon of the eutrophication of rivers and lakes and makes the water dirty and smelly. It is a serious threat to water security and public health. Most scholars studying solutions for this pollution have studied the principles of [...] Read more.

Algal bloom is a typical phenomenon of the eutrophication of rivers and lakes and makes the water dirty and smelly. It is a serious threat to water security and public health. Most scholars studying solutions for this pollution have studied the principles of remediation approaches, but few have studied the decision-making and selection of the approaches. Existing research uses simplex decision-making information which is highly subjective and uses little of the data from water quality sensors. To utilize these data and solve the rational decision-making problem, a novel group decision-making method is proposed using the sensor data with fuzzy evaluation information. Firstly, the optimal similarity aggregation model of group opinions is built based on the modified similarity measurement of Vague values. Secondly, the approaches’ ability to improve the water quality indexes is expressed using Vague evaluation methods. Thirdly, the water quality sensor data are analyzed to match the features of the alternative approaches with grey relational degrees. This allows the best remediation approach to be selected to meet the current water status. Finally, the selection model is applied to the remediation of algal bloom in lakes. The results show this method’s rationality and feasibility when using different data from different sources. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Multi-Sensor Information Fusion: Theory and Applications)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

5466 KiB

Open AccessArticle

GNSS Spoofing Network Monitoring Based on Differential Pseudorange

by Zhenjun Zhang and Xingqun Zhan

Sensors 2016, 16(10), 1771; https://doi.org/10.3390/s16101771 - 23 Oct 2016

Cited by 16 | Viewed by 5539

Spoofing is becoming a serious threat to various Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) applications, especially for those that require high reliability and security such as power grid synchronization and applications related to first responders and aviation safety. Most current works on anti-spoofing focus [...] Read more.

Spoofing is becoming a serious threat to various Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) applications, especially for those that require high reliability and security such as power grid synchronization and applications related to first responders and aviation safety. Most current works on anti-spoofing focus on spoofing detection from the individual receiver side, which identifies spoofing when it is under an attack. This paper proposes a novel spoofing network monitoring (SNM) mechanism aiming to reveal the presence of spoofing within an area. Consisting of several receivers and one central processing component, it keeps detecting spoofing even when the network is not attacked. The mechanism is based on the different time difference of arrival (TDOA) properties between spoofing and authentic signals. Normally, TDOAs of spoofing signals from a common spoofer are identical while those of authentic signals from diverse directions are dispersed. The TDOA is measured as the differential pseudorange to carrier frequency ratio (DPF). In a spoofing case, the DPFs include those of both authentic and spoofing signals, among which the DPFs of authentic are dispersed while those of spoofing are almost overlapped. An algorithm is proposed to search for the DPFs that are within a pre-defined small range, and an alarm will be raised if several DPFs are found within such range. The proposed SNM methodology is validated by simulations and a partial field trial. Results show 99.99% detection and 0.01% false alarm probabilities are achieved. The SNM has the potential to be adopted in various applications such as (1) alerting dedicated users when spoofing is occurring, which could significantly shorten the receiver side spoofing cost; (2) in combination with GNSS performance monitoring systems, such as the Continuous Operating Reference System (CORS) and GNSS Availability, Accuracy, Reliability anD Integrity Assessment for Timing and Navigation (GAARDIAN) System, to provide more reliable monitoring services. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Multi-Sensor Information Fusion: Theory and Applications)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

3888 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Self-Synthesis Approach to Perceptual Learning for Multisensory Fusion in Robotics

by Cristian Axenie, Christoph Richter and Jörg Conradt

Sensors 2016, 16(10), 1751; https://doi.org/10.3390/s16101751 - 20 Oct 2016

Cited by 10 | Viewed by 6376

Biological and technical systems operate in a rich multimodal environment. Due to the diversity of incoming sensory streams a system perceives and the variety of motor capabilities a system exhibits there is no single representation and no singular unambiguous interpretation of such a [...] Read more.

Biological and technical systems operate in a rich multimodal environment. Due to the diversity of incoming sensory streams a system perceives and the variety of motor capabilities a system exhibits there is no single representation and no singular unambiguous interpretation of such a complex scene. In this work we propose a novel sensory processing architecture, inspired by the distributed macro-architecture of the mammalian cortex. The underlying computation is performed by a network of computational maps, each representing a different sensory quantity. All the different sensory streams enter the system through multiple parallel channels. The system autonomously associates and combines them into a coherent representation, given incoming observations. These processes are adaptive and involve learning. The proposed framework introduces mechanisms for self-creation and learning of the functional relations between the computational maps, encoding sensorimotor streams, directly from the data. Its intrinsic scalability, parallelisation, and automatic adaptation to unforeseen sensory perturbations make our approach a promising candidate for robust multisensory fusion in robotic systems. We demonstrate this by applying our model to a 3D motion estimation on a quadrotor. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Multi-Sensor Information Fusion: Theory and Applications)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

1508 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Iterative Diffusion-Based Distributed Cubature Gaussian Mixture Filter for Multisensor Estimation

by Bin Jia, Tao Sun and Ming Xin

Sensors 2016, 16(10), 1741; https://doi.org/10.3390/s16101741 - 20 Oct 2016

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 4202

In this paper, a distributed cubature Gaussian mixture filter (DCGMF) based on an iterative diffusion strategy (DCGMF-ID) is proposed for multisensor estimation and information fusion. The uncertainties are represented as Gaussian mixtures at each sensor node. A high-degree cubature Kalman filter provides accurate [...] Read more.

In this paper, a distributed cubature Gaussian mixture filter (DCGMF) based on an iterative diffusion strategy (DCGMF-ID) is proposed for multisensor estimation and information fusion. The uncertainties are represented as Gaussian mixtures at each sensor node. A high-degree cubature Kalman filter provides accurate estimation of each Gaussian mixture component. An iterative diffusion scheme is utilized to fuse the mean and covariance of each Gaussian component obtained from each sensor node. The DCGMF-ID extends the conventional diffusion-based fusion strategy by using multiple iterative information exchanges among neighboring sensor nodes. The convergence property of the iterative diffusion is analyzed. In addition, it is shown that the convergence of the iterative diffusion can be interpreted from the information-theoretic perspective as minimization of the Kullback–Leibler divergence. The performance of the DCGMF-ID is compared with the DCGMF based on the average consensus (DCGMF-AC) and the DCGMF based on the iterative covariance intersection (DCGMF-ICI) via a maneuvering target-tracking problem using multiple sensors. The simulation results show that the DCGMF-ID has better performance than the DCGMF based on noniterative diffusion, which validates the benefit of iterative information exchanges. In addition, the DCGMF-ID outperforms the DCGMF-ICI and DCGMF-AC when the number of iterations is limited. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Multi-Sensor Information Fusion: Theory and Applications)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

1648 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Effective World Modeling: Multisensor Data Fusion Methodology for Automated Driving

by Jos Elfring, Rein Appeldoorn, Sjoerd Van den Dries and Maurice Kwakkernaat

Sensors 2016, 16(10), 1668; https://doi.org/10.3390/s16101668 - 11 Oct 2016

Cited by 35 | Viewed by 7479

The number of perception sensors on automated vehicles increases due to the increasing number of advanced driver assistance system functions and their increasing complexity. Furthermore, fail-safe systems require redundancy, thereby increasing the number of sensors even further. A one-size-fits-all multisensor data fusion architecture [...] Read more.

The number of perception sensors on automated vehicles increases due to the increasing number of advanced driver assistance system functions and their increasing complexity. Furthermore, fail-safe systems require redundancy, thereby increasing the number of sensors even further. A one-size-fits-all multisensor data fusion architecture is not realistic due to the enormous diversity in vehicles, sensors and applications. As an alternative, this work presents a methodology that can be used to effectively come up with an implementation to build a consistent model of a vehicle’s surroundings. The methodology is accompanied by a software architecture. This combination minimizes the effort required to update the multisensor data fusion system whenever sensors or applications are added or replaced. A series of real-world experiments involving different sensors and algorithms demonstrates the methodology and the software architecture. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Multi-Sensor Information Fusion: Theory and Applications)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

1920 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Adaptive Collaborative Gaussian Mixture Probability Hypothesis Density Filter for Multi-Target Tracking

by Feng Yang, Yongqi Wang, Hao Chen, Pengyan Zhang and Yan Liang

Sensors 2016, 16(10), 1666; https://doi.org/10.3390/s16101666 - 11 Oct 2016

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 4536

In this paper, an adaptive collaborative Gaussian Mixture Probability Hypothesis Density (ACo-GMPHD) filter is proposed for multi-target tracking with automatic track extraction. Based on the evolutionary difference between the persistent targets and the birth targets, the measurements are adaptively partitioned into two parts, [...] Read more.

In this paper, an adaptive collaborative Gaussian Mixture Probability Hypothesis Density (ACo-GMPHD) filter is proposed for multi-target tracking with automatic track extraction. Based on the evolutionary difference between the persistent targets and the birth targets, the measurements are adaptively partitioned into two parts, persistent and birth measurement sets, for updating the persistent and birth target Probability Hypothesis Density, respectively. Furthermore, the collaboration mechanism of multiple probability hypothesis density (PHDs) is established, where tracks can be automatically extracted. Simulation results reveal that the proposed filter yields considerable computational savings in processing requirements and significant improvement in tracking accuracy. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Multi-Sensor Information Fusion: Theory and Applications)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

7657 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Assessment of Data Fusion Algorithms for Earth Observation Change Detection Processes

by Iñigo Molina, Estibaliz Martinez, Carmen Morillo, Jesus Velasco and Alvaro Jara

Sensors 2016, 16(10), 1621; https://doi.org/10.3390/s16101621 - 30 Sep 2016

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 5677

In this work a parametric multi-sensor Bayesian data fusion approach and a Support Vector Machine (SVM) are used for a Change Detection problem. For this purpose two sets of SPOT5-PAN images have been used, which are in turn used for Change Detection Indices [...] Read more.

In this work a parametric multi-sensor Bayesian data fusion approach and a Support Vector Machine (SVM) are used for a Change Detection problem. For this purpose two sets of SPOT5-PAN images have been used, which are in turn used for Change Detection Indices (CDIs) calculation. For minimizing radiometric differences, a methodology based on zonal “invariant features” is suggested. The choice of one or the other CDI for a change detection process is a subjective task as each CDI is probably more or less sensitive to certain types of changes. Likewise, this idea might be employed to create and improve a “change map”, which can be accomplished by means of the CDI’s informational content. For this purpose, information metrics such as the Shannon Entropy and “Specific Information” have been used to weight the changes and no-changes categories contained in a certain CDI and thus introduced in the Bayesian information fusion algorithm. Furthermore, the parameters of the probability density functions (pdf’s) that best fit the involved categories have also been estimated. Conversely, these considerations are not necessary for mapping procedures based on the discriminant functions of a SVM. This work has confirmed the capabilities of probabilistic information fusion procedure under these circumstances. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Multi-Sensor Information Fusion: Theory and Applications)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

5355 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Efficient Data Gathering Methods in Wireless Sensor Networks Using GBTR Matrix Completion

by Donghao Wang, Jiangwen Wan, Zhipeng Nie, Qiang Zhang and Zhijie Fei

Sensors 2016, 16(9), 1532; https://doi.org/10.3390/s16091532 - 21 Sep 2016

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 5735

To obtain efficient data gathering methods for wireless sensor networks (WSNs), a novel graph based transform regularized (GBTR) matrix completion algorithm is proposed. The graph based transform sparsity of the sensed data is explored, which is also considered as a penalty term in [...] Read more.

To obtain efficient data gathering methods for wireless sensor networks (WSNs), a novel graph based transform regularized (GBTR) matrix completion algorithm is proposed. The graph based transform sparsity of the sensed data is explored, which is also considered as a penalty term in the matrix completion problem. The proposed GBTR-ADMM algorithm utilizes the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) in an iterative procedure to solve the constrained optimization problem. Since the performance of the ADMM method is sensitive to the number of constraints, the GBTR-A2DM2 algorithm obtained to accelerate the convergence of GBTR-ADMM. GBTR-A2DM2 benefits from merging two constraint conditions into one as well as using a restart rule. The theoretical analysis shows the proposed algorithms obtain satisfactory time complexity. Extensive simulation results verify that our proposed algorithms outperform the state of the art algorithms for data collection problems in WSNs in respect to recovery accuracy, convergence rate, and energy consumption. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Multi-Sensor Information Fusion: Theory and Applications)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

1113 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Sensor Data Fusion with Z-Numbers and Its Application in Fault Diagnosis

by Wen Jiang, Chunhe Xie, Miaoyan Zhuang, Yehang Shou and Yongchuan Tang

Sensors 2016, 16(9), 1509; https://doi.org/10.3390/s16091509 - 15 Sep 2016

Cited by 134 | Viewed by 9027

Sensor data fusion technology is widely employed in fault diagnosis. The information in a sensor data fusion system is characterized by not only fuzziness, but also partial reliability. Uncertain information of sensors, including randomness, fuzziness, etc., has been extensively studied recently. However, the [...] Read more.

Sensor data fusion technology is widely employed in fault diagnosis. The information in a sensor data fusion system is characterized by not only fuzziness, but also partial reliability. Uncertain information of sensors, including randomness, fuzziness, etc., has been extensively studied recently. However, the reliability of a sensor is often overlooked or cannot be analyzed adequately. A Z-number, Z = (A, B), can represent the fuzziness and the reliability of information simultaneously, where the first component A represents a fuzzy restriction on the values of uncertain variables and the second component B is a measure of the reliability of A. In order to model and process the uncertainties in a sensor data fusion system reasonably, in this paper, a novel method combining the Z-number and Dempster–Shafer (D-S) evidence theory is proposed, where the Z-number is used to model the fuzziness and reliability of the sensor data and the D-S evidence theory is used to fuse the uncertain information of Z-numbers. The main advantages of the proposed method are that it provides a more robust measure of reliability to the sensor data, and the complementary information of multi-sensors reduces the uncertainty of the fault recognition, thus enhancing the reliability of fault detection. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Multi-Sensor Information Fusion: Theory and Applications)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

8108 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Spiking Cortical Model Based Multimodal Medical Image Fusion by Combining Entropy Information with Weber Local Descriptor

by Xuming Zhang, Jinxia Ren, Zhiwen Huang and Fei Zhu

Sensors 2016, 16(9), 1503; https://doi.org/10.3390/s16091503 - 15 Sep 2016

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 5569

Multimodal medical image fusion (MIF) plays an important role in clinical diagnosis and therapy. Existing MIF methods tend to introduce artifacts, lead to loss of image details or produce low-contrast fused images. To address these problems, a novel spiking cortical model (SCM) based [...] Read more.

Multimodal medical image fusion (MIF) plays an important role in clinical diagnosis and therapy. Existing MIF methods tend to introduce artifacts, lead to loss of image details or produce low-contrast fused images. To address these problems, a novel spiking cortical model (SCM) based MIF method has been proposed in this paper. The proposed method can generate high-quality fused images using the weighting fusion strategy based on the firing times of the SCM. In the weighting fusion scheme, the weight is determined by combining the entropy information of pulse outputs of the SCM with the Weber local descriptor operating on the firing mapping images produced from the pulse outputs. The extensive experiments on multimodal medical images show that compared with the numerous state-of-the-art MIF methods, the proposed method can preserve image details very well and avoid the introduction of artifacts effectively, and thus it significantly improves the quality of fused images in terms of human vision and objective evaluation criteria such as mutual information, edge preservation index, structural similarity based metric, fusion quality index, fusion similarity metric and standard deviation. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Multi-Sensor Information Fusion: Theory and Applications)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

3132 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Continuous Indoor Positioning Fusing WiFi, Smartphone Sensors and Landmarks

by Zhi-An Deng, Guofeng Wang, Danyang Qin, Zhenyu Na, Yang Cui and Juan Chen

Sensors 2016, 16(9), 1427; https://doi.org/10.3390/s16091427 - 05 Sep 2016

Cited by 42 | Viewed by 7231

To exploit the complementary strengths of WiFi positioning, pedestrian dead reckoning (PDR), and landmarks, we propose a novel fusion approach based on an extended Kalman filter (EKF). For WiFi positioning, unlike previous fusion approaches setting measurement noise parameters empirically, we deploy a kernel [...] Read more.

To exploit the complementary strengths of WiFi positioning, pedestrian dead reckoning (PDR), and landmarks, we propose a novel fusion approach based on an extended Kalman filter (EKF). For WiFi positioning, unlike previous fusion approaches setting measurement noise parameters empirically, we deploy a kernel density estimation-based model to adaptively measure the related measurement noise statistics. Furthermore, a trusted area of WiFi positioning defined by fusion results of previous step and WiFi signal outlier detection are exploited to reduce computational cost and improve WiFi positioning accuracy. For PDR, we integrate a gyroscope, an accelerometer, and a magnetometer to determine the user heading based on another EKF model. To reduce accumulation error of PDR and enable continuous indoor positioning, not only the positioning results but also the heading estimations are recalibrated by indoor landmarks. Experimental results in a realistic indoor environment show that the proposed fusion approach achieves substantial positioning accuracy improvement than individual positioning approaches including PDR and WiFi positioning. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Multi-Sensor Information Fusion: Theory and Applications)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

543 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Multi-Sensor Consensus Estimation of State, Sensor Biases and Unknown Input

by Jie Zhou, Yan Liang, Feng Yang, Linfeng Xu and Quan Pan

Sensors 2016, 16(9), 1407; https://doi.org/10.3390/s16091407 - 01 Sep 2016

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 4896

This paper addresses the problem of the joint estimation of system state and generalized sensor bias (GSB) under a common unknown input (UI) in the case of bias evolution in a heterogeneous sensor network. First, the equivalent UI-free GSB dynamic model is derived [...] Read more.

This paper addresses the problem of the joint estimation of system state and generalized sensor bias (GSB) under a common unknown input (UI) in the case of bias evolution in a heterogeneous sensor network. First, the equivalent UI-free GSB dynamic model is derived and the local optimal estimates of system state and sensor bias are obtained in each sensor node; Second, based on the state and bias estimates obtained by each node from its neighbors, the UI is estimated via the least-squares method, and then the state estimates are fused via consensus processing; Finally, the multi-sensor bias estimates are further refined based on the consensus estimate of the UI. A numerical example of distributed multi-sensor target tracking is presented to illustrate the proposed filter. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Multi-Sensor Information Fusion: Theory and Applications)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

26261 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Sensor Fusion Method Based on an Integrated Neural Network and Kalman Filter for Vehicle Roll Angle Estimation

by Leandro Vargas-Meléndez, Beatriz L. Boada, María Jesús L. Boada, Antonio Gauchía and Vicente Díaz

Sensors 2016, 16(9), 1400; https://doi.org/10.3390/s16091400 - 31 Aug 2016

Cited by 48 | Viewed by 9533

This article presents a novel estimator based on sensor fusion, which combines the Neural Network (NN) with a Kalman filter in order to estimate the vehicle roll angle. The NN estimates a “pseudo-roll angle” through variables that are easily measured from Inertial Measurement [...] Read more.

This article presents a novel estimator based on sensor fusion, which combines the Neural Network (NN) with a Kalman filter in order to estimate the vehicle roll angle. The NN estimates a “pseudo-roll angle” through variables that are easily measured from Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) sensors. An IMU is a device that is commonly used for vehicle motion detection, and its cost has decreased during recent years. The pseudo-roll angle is introduced in the Kalman filter in order to filter noise and minimize the variance of the norm and maximum errors’ estimation. The NN has been trained for J-turn maneuvers, double lane change maneuvers and lane change maneuvers at different speeds and road friction coefficients. The proposed method takes into account the vehicle non-linearities, thus yielding good roll angle estimation. Finally, the proposed estimator has been compared with one that uses the suspension deflections to obtain the pseudo-roll angle. Experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed NN and Kalman filter-based estimator. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Multi-Sensor Information Fusion: Theory and Applications)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

2789 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Cardinality Balanced Multi-Target Multi-Bernoulli Filter with Error Compensation

by Xiangyu He and Guixi Liu

Sensors 2016, 16(9), 1399; https://doi.org/10.3390/s16091399 - 31 Aug 2016

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 4244

The cardinality balanced multi-target multi-Bernoulli (CBMeMBer) filter developed recently has been proved an effective multi-target tracking (MTT) algorithm based on the random finite set (RFS) theory, and it can jointly estimate the number of targets and their states from a sequence of sensor [...] Read more.

The cardinality balanced multi-target multi-Bernoulli (CBMeMBer) filter developed recently has been proved an effective multi-target tracking (MTT) algorithm based on the random finite set (RFS) theory, and it can jointly estimate the number of targets and their states from a sequence of sensor measurement sets. However, because of the existence of systematic errors in sensor measurements, the CBMeMBer filter can easily produce different levels of performance degradation. In this paper, an extended CBMeMBer filter, in which the joint probability density function of target state and systematic error is recursively estimated, is proposed to address the MTT problem based on the sensor measurements with systematic errors. In addition, an analytic implementation of the extended CBMeMBer filter is also presented for linear Gaussian models. Simulation results confirm that the proposed algorithm can track multiple targets with better performance. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Multi-Sensor Information Fusion: Theory and Applications)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

2160 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Matrix-Based Proactive Data Relay Algorithm for Large Distributed Sensor Networks

by Yang Xu, Xuemei Hu, Haixiao Hu and Ming Liu

Sensors 2016, 16(8), 1300; https://doi.org/10.3390/s16081300 - 16 Aug 2016

Viewed by 3876

In large-scale distributed sensor networks, sensed data is required to be relayed around the network so that one or few sensors can gather adequate relative data to produce high quality information for decision-making. In regards to very high energy-constraint sensor nodes, data transmission [...] Read more.

In large-scale distributed sensor networks, sensed data is required to be relayed around the network so that one or few sensors can gather adequate relative data to produce high quality information for decision-making. In regards to very high energy-constraint sensor nodes, data transmission should be extremely economical. However, traditional data delivery protocols are potentially inefficient relaying unpredictable sensor readings for data fusion in large distributed networks for either overwhelming query transmissions or unnecessary data coverage. By building sensors’ local model from their previously transmitted data in three matrixes, we have developed a novel energy-saving data relay algorithm, which allows sensors to proactively make broadcast decisions by using a neat matrix computation to provide balance between transmission and energy-saving. In addition, we designed a heuristic maintenance algorithm to efficiently update these three matrices. This can easily be deployed to large-scale mobile networks in which decisions of sensors are based on their local matrix models no matter how large the network is, and the local models of these sensors are updated constantly. Compared with some traditional approaches based on our simulations, the efficiency of this approach is manifested in uncertain environment. The results show that our approach is scalable and can effectively balance aggregating data with minimizing energy consumption. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Multi-Sensor Information Fusion: Theory and Applications)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

2679 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Sensor Fusion of Gaussian Mixtures for Ballistic Target Tracking in the Re-Entry Phase

by Kelin Lu and Rui Zhou

Sensors 2016, 16(8), 1289; https://doi.org/10.3390/s16081289 - 15 Aug 2016

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 4278

A sensor fusion methodology for the Gaussian mixtures model is proposed for ballistic target tracking with unknown ballistic coefficients. To improve the estimation accuracy, a track-to-track fusion architecture is proposed to fuse tracks provided by the local interacting multiple model filters. During the [...] Read more.

A sensor fusion methodology for the Gaussian mixtures model is proposed for ballistic target tracking with unknown ballistic coefficients. To improve the estimation accuracy, a track-to-track fusion architecture is proposed to fuse tracks provided by the local interacting multiple model filters. During the fusion process, the duplicate information is removed by considering the first order redundant information between the local tracks. With extensive simulations, we show that the proposed algorithm improves the tracking accuracy in ballistic target tracking in the re-entry phase applications. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Multi-Sensor Information Fusion: Theory and Applications)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

9135 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Positioning Accuracy of BAUV Using Fusion of Data from USBL System and Movement Parameters Measurements

by Naus Krzysztof and Nowak Aleksander

Sensors 2016, 16(8), 1279; https://doi.org/10.3390/s16081279 - 15 Aug 2016

Cited by 18 | Viewed by 5098

The article presents a study of the accuracy of estimating the position coordinates of BAUV (Biomimetic Autonomous Underwater Vehicle) by the extended Kalman filter (EKF) method. The fusion of movement parameters measurements and position coordinates fixes was applied. The movement parameters measurements are [...] Read more.

The article presents a study of the accuracy of estimating the position coordinates of BAUV (Biomimetic Autonomous Underwater Vehicle) by the extended Kalman filter (EKF) method. The fusion of movement parameters measurements and position coordinates fixes was applied. The movement parameters measurements are carried out by on-board navigation devices, while the position coordinates fixes are done by the USBL (Ultra Short Base Line) system. The problem of underwater positioning and the conceptual design of the BAUV navigation system constructed at the Naval Academy (Polish Naval Academy—PNA) are presented in the first part of the paper. The second part consists of description of the evaluation results of positioning accuracy, the genesis of the problem of selecting method for underwater positioning, and the mathematical description of the method of estimating the position coordinates using the EKF method by the fusion of measurements with on-board navigation and measurements obtained with the USBL system. The main part contains a description of experimental research. It consists of a simulation program of navigational parameter measurements carried out during the BAUV passage along the test section. Next, the article covers the determination of position coordinates on the basis of simulated parameters, using EKF and DR methods and the USBL system, which are then subjected to a comparative analysis of accuracy. The final part contains systemic conclusions justifying the desirability of applying the proposed fusion method of navigation parameters for the BAUV positioning. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Multi-Sensor Information Fusion: Theory and Applications)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

5082 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Regular Deployment of Wireless Sensors to Achieve Connectivity and Information Coverage

by Wei Cheng, Yong Li, Yi Jiang and Xipeng Yin

Sensors 2016, 16(8), 1270; https://doi.org/10.3390/s16081270 - 12 Aug 2016

Cited by 11 | Viewed by 4130

Coverage and connectivity are two of the most critical research subjects in WSNs, while regular deterministic deployment is an important deployment strategy and results in some pattern-based lattice WSNs. Some studies of optimal regular deployment for generic values of r_c/r [...] Read more.

Coverage and connectivity are two of the most critical research subjects in WSNs, while regular deterministic deployment is an important deployment strategy and results in some pattern-based lattice WSNs. Some studies of optimal regular deployment for generic values of r_c/r_s were shown recently. However, most of these deployments are subject to a disk sensing model, and cannot take advantage of data fusion. Meanwhile some other studies adapt detection techniques and data fusion to sensing coverage to enhance the deployment scheme. In this paper, we provide some results on optimal regular deployment patterns to achieve information coverage and connectivity as a variety of r_c/r_s, which are all based on data fusion by sensor collaboration, and propose a novel data fusion strategy for deployment patterns. At first the relation between variety of r_c/r_s and density of sensors needed to achieve information coverage and connectivity is derived in closed form for regular pattern-based lattice WSNs. Then a dual triangular pattern deployment based on our novel data fusion strategy is proposed, which can utilize collaborative data fusion more efficiently. The strip-based deployment is also extended to a new pattern to achieve information coverage and connectivity, and its characteristics are deduced in closed form. Some discussions and simulations are given to show the efficiency of all deployment patterns, including previous patterns and the proposed patterns, to help developers make more impactful WSN deployment decisions. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Multi-Sensor Information Fusion: Theory and Applications)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

5639 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Research on a Defects Detection Method in the Ferrite Phase Shifter Cementing Process Based on a Multi-Sensor Prognostic and Health Management (PHM) System

by Bo Wan, Guicui Fu, Yanruoyue Li and Youhu Zhao

Sensors 2016, 16(8), 1263; https://doi.org/10.3390/s16081263 - 10 Aug 2016

Viewed by 5036

The cementing manufacturing process of ferrite phase shifters has the defect that cementing strength is insufficient and fractures always appear. A detection method of these defects was studied utilizing the multi-sensors Prognostic and Health Management (PHM) theory. Aiming at these process defects, the [...] Read more.

The cementing manufacturing process of ferrite phase shifters has the defect that cementing strength is insufficient and fractures always appear. A detection method of these defects was studied utilizing the multi-sensors Prognostic and Health Management (PHM) theory. Aiming at these process defects, the reasons that lead to defects are analyzed in this paper. In the meanwhile, the key process parameters were determined and Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) tests during the cure process of resin cementing were carried out. At the same time, in order to get data on changing cementing strength, multiple-group cementing process tests of different key process parameters were designed and conducted. A relational model of cementing strength and cure temperature, time and pressure was established, by combining data of DSC and process tests as well as based on the Avrami formula. Through sensitivity analysis for three process parameters, the on-line detection decision criterion and the process parameters which have obvious impact on cementing strength were determined. A PHM system with multiple temperature and pressure sensors was established on this basis, and then, on-line detection, diagnosis and control for ferrite phase shifter cementing process defects were realized. It was verified by subsequent process that the on-line detection system improved the reliability of the ferrite phase shifter cementing process and reduced the incidence of insufficient cementing strength defects. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Multi-Sensor Information Fusion: Theory and Applications)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

3591 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Stochastic Modeling and Analysis of Multiple Nonlinear Accelerated Degradation Processes through Information Fusion

by Fuqiang Sun, Le Liu, Xiaoyang Li and Haitao Liao

Sensors 2016, 16(8), 1242; https://doi.org/10.3390/s16081242 - 06 Aug 2016

Cited by 41 | Viewed by 5553

Accelerated degradation testing (ADT) is an efficient technique for evaluating the lifetime of a highly reliable product whose underlying failure process may be traced by the degradation of the product’s performance parameters with time. However, most research on ADT mainly focuses on a [...] Read more.

Accelerated degradation testing (ADT) is an efficient technique for evaluating the lifetime of a highly reliable product whose underlying failure process may be traced by the degradation of the product’s performance parameters with time. However, most research on ADT mainly focuses on a single performance parameter. In reality, the performance of a modern product is usually characterized by multiple parameters, and the degradation paths are usually nonlinear. To address such problems, this paper develops a new s-dependent nonlinear ADT model for products with multiple performance parameters using a general Wiener process and copulas. The general Wiener process models the nonlinear ADT data, and the dependency among different degradation measures is analyzed using the copula method. An engineering case study on a tuner’s ADT data is conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. The results illustrate that the proposed method is quite effective in estimating the lifetime of a product with s-dependent performance parameters. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Multi-Sensor Information Fusion: Theory and Applications)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

6326 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Fuzzy Adaptive Cubature Kalman Filter for Integrated Navigation Systems

by Chien-Hao Tseng, Sheng-Fuu Lin and Dah-Jing Jwo

Sensors 2016, 16(8), 1167; https://doi.org/10.3390/s16081167 - 26 Jul 2016

Cited by 39 | Viewed by 6791

This paper presents a sensor fusion method based on the combination of cubature Kalman filter (CKF) and fuzzy logic adaptive system (FLAS) for the integrated navigation systems, such as the GPS/INS (Global Positioning System/inertial navigation system) integration. The third-degree spherical-radial cubature rule applied [...] Read more.

This paper presents a sensor fusion method based on the combination of cubature Kalman filter (CKF) and fuzzy logic adaptive system (FLAS) for the integrated navigation systems, such as the GPS/INS (Global Positioning System/inertial navigation system) integration. The third-degree spherical-radial cubature rule applied in the CKF has been employed to avoid the numerically instability in the system model. In processing navigation integration, the performance of nonlinear filter based estimation of the position and velocity states may severely degrade caused by modeling errors due to dynamics uncertainties of the vehicle. In order to resolve the shortcoming for selecting the process noise covariance through personal experience or numerical simulation, a scheme called the fuzzy adaptive cubature Kalman filter (FACKF) is presented by introducing the FLAS to adjust the weighting factor of the process noise covariance matrix. The FLAS is incorporated into the CKF framework as a mechanism for timely implementing the tuning of process noise covariance matrix based on the information of degree of divergence (DOD) parameter. The proposed FACKF algorithm shows promising accuracy improvement as compared to the extended Kalman filter (EKF), unscented Kalman filter (UKF), and CKF approaches. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Multi-Sensor Information Fusion: Theory and Applications)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

1247 KiB

Open AccessArticle

State Estimation for a Class of Non-Uniform Sampling Systems with Missing Measurements

by Honglei Lin and Shuli Sun

Sensors 2016, 16(8), 1155; https://doi.org/10.3390/s16081155 - 23 Jul 2016

Cited by 25 | Viewed by 4532

This paper is concerned with the state estimation problem for a class of non-uniform sampling systems with missing measurements where the state is updated uniformly and the measurements are sampled randomly. A new state model is developed to depict the dynamics at the [...] Read more.

This paper is concerned with the state estimation problem for a class of non-uniform sampling systems with missing measurements where the state is updated uniformly and the measurements are sampled randomly. A new state model is developed to depict the dynamics at the measurement sampling points within a state update period. A non-augmented state estimator dependent on the missing rate is presented by applying an innovation analysis approach. It can provide the state estimates at the state update points and at the measurement sampling points within a state update period. Compared with the augmented method, the proposed algorithm can reduce the computational burden with the increase of the number of measurement samples within a state update period. It can deal with the optimal estimation problem for single and multi-sensor systems in a unified way. To improve the reliability, a distributed suboptimal fusion estimator at the state update points is also given for multi-sensor systems by using the covariance intersection fusion algorithm. The simulation research verifies the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Multi-Sensor Information Fusion: Theory and Applications)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

1414 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Vector Matching Method in Geomagnetic Aiding Navigation

by Zhongguo Song, Jinsheng Zhang, Wenqi Zhu and Xiaoli Xi

Sensors 2016, 16(7), 1120; https://doi.org/10.3390/s16071120 - 20 Jul 2016

Cited by 36 | Viewed by 5270

In this paper, a geomagnetic matching navigation method that utilizes the geomagnetic vector is developed, which can greatly improve the matching probability and positioning precision, even when the geomagnetic entropy information in the matching region is small or the geomagnetic contour line’s variety [...] Read more.

In this paper, a geomagnetic matching navigation method that utilizes the geomagnetic vector is developed, which can greatly improve the matching probability and positioning precision, even when the geomagnetic entropy information in the matching region is small or the geomagnetic contour line’s variety is obscure. The vector iterative closest contour point (VICCP) algorithm that is proposed here has better adaptability with the positioning error characteristics of the inertial navigation system (INS), where the rigid transformation in ordinary ICCP is replaced with affine transformation. In a subsequent step, a geomagnetic vector information fusion algorithm based on Bayesian statistical analysis is introduced into VICCP to improve matching performance further. Simulations based on the actual geomagnetic reference map have been performed for the validation of the proposed algorithm. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Multi-Sensor Information Fusion: Theory and Applications)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

9193 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Joint Adaptive Kalman Filter (JAKF) for Vehicle Motion State Estimation

by Siwei Gao, Yanheng Liu, Jian Wang, Weiwen Deng and Heekuck Oh

Sensors 2016, 16(7), 1103; https://doi.org/10.3390/s16071103 - 16 Jul 2016

Cited by 12 | Viewed by 6957

This paper proposes a multi-sensory Joint Adaptive Kalman Filter (JAKF) through extending innovation-based adaptive estimation (IAE) to estimate the motion state of the moving vehicles ahead. JAKF views Lidar and Radar data as the source of the local filters, which aims to adaptively [...] Read more.

This paper proposes a multi-sensory Joint Adaptive Kalman Filter (JAKF) through extending innovation-based adaptive estimation (IAE) to estimate the motion state of the moving vehicles ahead. JAKF views Lidar and Radar data as the source of the local filters, which aims to adaptively adjust the measurement noise variance-covariance (V-C) matrix ‘R’ and the system noise V-C matrix ‘Q’. Then, the global filter uses R to calculate the information allocation factor ‘β’ for data fusion. Finally, the global filter completes optimal data fusion and feeds back to the local filters to improve the measurement accuracy of the local filters. Extensive simulation and experimental results show that the JAKF has better adaptive ability and fault tolerance. JAKF enables one to bridge the gap of the accuracy difference of various sensors to improve the integral filtering effectivity. If any sensor breaks down, the filtered results of JAKF still can maintain a stable convergence rate. Moreover, the JAKF outperforms the conventional Kalman filter (CKF) and the innovation-based adaptive Kalman filter (IAKF) with respect to the accuracy of displacement, velocity, and acceleration, respectively. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Multi-Sensor Information Fusion: Theory and Applications)

► Show Figures

Graphical abstract

5384 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Multi-Sensor Integration to Map Odor Distribution for the Detection of Chemical Sources

by Xiang Gao and Levent Acar

Sensors 2016, 16(7), 1034; https://doi.org/10.3390/s16071034 - 04 Jul 2016

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 4614

This paper addresses the problem of mapping odor distribution derived from a chemical source using multi-sensor integration and reasoning system design. Odor localization is the problem of finding the source of an odor or other volatile chemical. Most localization methods require a mobile [...] Read more.

This paper addresses the problem of mapping odor distribution derived from a chemical source using multi-sensor integration and reasoning system design. Odor localization is the problem of finding the source of an odor or other volatile chemical. Most localization methods require a mobile vehicle to follow an odor plume along its entire path, which is time consuming and may be especially difficult in a cluttered environment. To solve both of the above challenges, this paper proposes a novel algorithm that combines data from odor and anemometer sensors, and combine sensors’ data at different positions. Initially, a multi-sensor integration method, together with the path of airflow was used to map the pattern of odor particle movement. Then, more sensors are introduced at specific regions to determine the probable location of the odor source. Finally, the results of odor source location simulation and a real experiment are presented. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Multi-Sensor Information Fusion: Theory and Applications)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

880 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Distributed Learning Method for ℓ 1 -Regularized Kernel Machine over Wireless Sensor Networks

by Xinrong Ji, Cuiqin Hou, Yibin Hou, Fang Gao and Shulong Wang

Sensors 2016, 16(7), 1021; https://doi.org/10.3390/s16071021 - 01 Jul 2016

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 4277

In wireless sensor networks, centralized learning methods have very high communication costs and energy consumption. These are caused by the need to transmit scattered training examples from various sensor nodes to the central fusion center where a classifier or a regression machine is [...] Read more.

In wireless sensor networks, centralized learning methods have very high communication costs and energy consumption. These are caused by the need to transmit scattered training examples from various sensor nodes to the central fusion center where a classifier or a regression machine is trained. To reduce the communication cost, a distributed learning method for a kernel machine that incorporates

ℓ_{1}

norm regularization (

ℓ_{1}

-regularized) is investigated, and a novel distributed learning algorithm for the

ℓ_{1}

-regularized kernel minimum mean squared error (KMSE) machine is proposed. The proposed algorithm relies on in-network processing and a collaboration that transmits the sparse model only between single-hop neighboring nodes. This paper evaluates the proposed algorithm with respect to the prediction accuracy, the sparse rate of model, the communication cost and the number of iterations on synthetic and real datasets. The simulation results show that the proposed algorithm can obtain approximately the same prediction accuracy as that obtained by the batch learning method. Moreover, it is significantly superior in terms of the sparse rate of model and communication cost, and it can converge with fewer iterations. Finally, an experiment conducted on a wireless sensor network (WSN) test platform further shows the advantages of the proposed algorithm with respect to communication cost. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Multi-Sensor Information Fusion: Theory and Applications)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

9821 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Normalized Metadata Generation for Human Retrieval Using Multiple Video Surveillance Cameras

by Jaehoon Jung, Inhye Yoon, Seungwon Lee and Joonki Paik

Sensors 2016, 16(7), 963; https://doi.org/10.3390/s16070963 - 24 Jun 2016

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 6479

Since it is impossible for surveillance personnel to keep monitoring videos from a multiple camera-based surveillance system, an efficient technique is needed to help recognize important situations by retrieving the metadata of an object-of-interest. In a multiple camera-based surveillance system, an object detected [...] Read more.

Since it is impossible for surveillance personnel to keep monitoring videos from a multiple camera-based surveillance system, an efficient technique is needed to help recognize important situations by retrieving the metadata of an object-of-interest. In a multiple camera-based surveillance system, an object detected in a camera has a different shape in another camera, which is a critical issue of wide-range, real-time surveillance systems. In order to address the problem, this paper presents an object retrieval method by extracting the normalized metadata of an object-of-interest from multiple, heterogeneous cameras. The proposed metadata generation algorithm consists of three steps: (i) generation of a three-dimensional (3D) human model; (ii) human object-based automatic scene calibration; and (iii) metadata generation. More specifically, an appropriately-generated 3D human model provides the foot-to-head direction information that is used as the input of the automatic calibration of each camera. The normalized object information is used to retrieve an object-of-interest in a wide-range, multiple-camera surveillance system in the form of metadata. Experimental results show that the 3D human model matches the ground truth, and automatic calibration-based normalization of metadata enables a successful retrieval and tracking of a human object in the multiple-camera video surveillance system. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Multi-Sensor Information Fusion: Theory and Applications)

► Show Figures

Graphical abstract

695 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Gyro Drift Correction for An Indirect Kalman Filter Based Sensor Fusion Driver

by Chan-Gun Lee, Nhu-Ngoc Dao, Seonmin Jang, Deokhwan Kim, Yonghun Kim and Sungrae Cho

Sensors 2016, 16(6), 864; https://doi.org/10.3390/s16060864 - 11 Jun 2016

Cited by 13 | Viewed by 7960

Sensor fusion techniques have made a significant contribution to the success of the recently emerging mobile applications era because a variety of mobile applications operate based on multi-sensing information from the surrounding environment, such as navigation systems, fitness trackers, interactive virtual reality games, [...] Read more.

Sensor fusion techniques have made a significant contribution to the success of the recently emerging mobile applications era because a variety of mobile applications operate based on multi-sensing information from the surrounding environment, such as navigation systems, fitness trackers, interactive virtual reality games, etc. For these applications, the accuracy of sensing information plays an important role to improve the user experience (UX) quality, especially with gyroscopes and accelerometers. Therefore, in this paper, we proposed a novel mechanism to resolve the gyro drift problem, which negatively affects the accuracy of orientation computations in the indirect Kalman filter based sensor fusion. Our mechanism focuses on addressing the issues of external feedback loops and non-gyro error elements contained in the state vectors of an indirect Kalman filter. Moreover, the mechanism is implemented in the device-driver layer, providing lower process latency and transparency capabilities for the upper applications. These advances are relevant to millions of legacy applications since utilizing our mechanism does not require the existing applications to be re-programmed. The experimental results show that the root mean square errors (RMSE) before and after applying our mechanism are significantly reduced from 6.3 × 10⁻¹ to 5.3 × 10⁻⁷, respectively. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Multi-Sensor Information Fusion: Theory and Applications)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

368 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Networked Fusion Filtering from Outputs with Stochastic Uncertainties and Correlated Random Transmission Delays

by Raquel Caballero-Águila, Aurora Hermoso-Carazo and Josefa Linares-Pérez

Sensors 2016, 16(6), 847; https://doi.org/10.3390/s16060847 - 08 Jun 2016

Cited by 14 | Viewed by 3806

This paper is concerned with the distributed and centralized fusion filtering problems in sensor networked systems with random one-step delays in transmissions. The delays are described by Bernoulli variables correlated at consecutive sampling times, with different characteristics at each sensor. The measured outputs [...] Read more.

This paper is concerned with the distributed and centralized fusion filtering problems in sensor networked systems with random one-step delays in transmissions. The delays are described by Bernoulli variables correlated at consecutive sampling times, with different characteristics at each sensor. The measured outputs are subject to uncertainties modeled by random parameter matrices, thus providing a unified framework to describe a wide variety of network-induced phenomena; moreover, the additive noises are assumed to be one-step autocorrelated and cross-correlated. Under these conditions, without requiring the knowledge of the signal evolution model, but using only the first and second order moments of the processes involved in the observation model, recursive algorithms for the optimal linear distributed and centralized filters under the least-squares criterion are derived by an innovation approach. Firstly, local estimators based on the measurements received from each sensor are obtained and, after that, the distributed fusion filter is generated as the least-squares matrix-weighted linear combination of the local estimators. Also, a recursive algorithm for the optimal linear centralized filter is proposed. In order to compare the estimators performance, recursive formulas for the error covariance matrices are derived in all the algorithms. The effects of the delays in the filters accuracy are analyzed in a numerical example which also illustrates how some usual network-induced uncertainties can be dealt with using the current observation model described by random matrices. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Multi-Sensor Information Fusion: Theory and Applications)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

1435 KiB

Open AccessArticle

An Improved Interacting Multiple Model Filtering Algorithm Based on the Cubature Kalman Filter for Maneuvering Target Tracking

by Wei Zhu, Wei Wang and Gannan Yuan

Sensors 2016, 16(6), 805; https://doi.org/10.3390/s16060805 - 01 Jun 2016

Cited by 68 | Viewed by 6597

In order to improve the tracking accuracy, model estimation accuracy and quick response of multiple model maneuvering target tracking, the interacting multiple models five degree cubature Kalman filter (IMM5CKF) is proposed in this paper. In the proposed algorithm, the interacting multiple models (IMM) [...] Read more.

In order to improve the tracking accuracy, model estimation accuracy and quick response of multiple model maneuvering target tracking, the interacting multiple models five degree cubature Kalman filter (IMM5CKF) is proposed in this paper. In the proposed algorithm, the interacting multiple models (IMM) algorithm processes all the models through a Markov Chain to simultaneously enhance the model tracking accuracy of target tracking. Then a five degree cubature Kalman filter (5CKF) evaluates the surface integral by a higher but deterministic odd ordered spherical cubature rule to improve the tracking accuracy and the model switch sensitivity of the IMM algorithm. Finally, the simulation results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm exhibits quick and smooth switching when disposing different maneuver models, and it also performs better than the interacting multiple models cubature Kalman filter (IMMCKF), interacting multiple models unscented Kalman filter (IMMUKF), 5CKF and the optimal mode transition matrix IMM (OMTM-IMM). Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Multi-Sensor Information Fusion: Theory and Applications)

► Show Figures

Graphical abstract

2242 KiB

Open AccessArticle

myBlackBox: Blackbox Mobile Cloud Systems for Personalized Unusual Event Detection

by Junho Ahn and Richard Han

Sensors 2016, 16(5), 753; https://doi.org/10.3390/s16050753 - 23 May 2016

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 6471

We demonstrate the feasibility of constructing a novel and practical real-world mobile cloud system, called myBlackBox, that efficiently fuses multimodal smartphone sensor data to identify and log unusual personal events in mobile users’ daily lives. The system incorporates a hybrid architectural design that [...] Read more.

We demonstrate the feasibility of constructing a novel and practical real-world mobile cloud system, called myBlackBox, that efficiently fuses multimodal smartphone sensor data to identify and log unusual personal events in mobile users’ daily lives. The system incorporates a hybrid architectural design that combines unsupervised classification of audio, accelerometer and location data with supervised joint fusion classification to achieve high accuracy, customization, convenience and scalability. We show the feasibility of myBlackBox by implementing and evaluating this end-to-end system that combines Android smartphones with cloud servers, deployed for 15 users over a one-month period. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Multi-Sensor Information Fusion: Theory and Applications)

► Show Figures

Graphical abstract

1207 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Wireless Sensor Array Network DoA Estimation from Compressed Array Data via Joint Sparse Representation

by Kai Yu, Ming Yin, Ji-An Luo, Yingguan Wang, Ming Bao, Yu-Hen Hu and Zhi Wang

Sensors 2016, 16(5), 686; https://doi.org/10.3390/s16050686 - 23 May 2016

Cited by 8 | Viewed by 5464

A compressive sensing joint sparse representation direction of arrival estimation (CSJSR-DoA) approach is proposed for wireless sensor array networks (WSAN). By exploiting the joint spatial and spectral correlations of acoustic sensor array data, the CSJSR-DoA approach provides reliable DoA estimation using randomly-sampled acoustic [...] Read more.

A compressive sensing joint sparse representation direction of arrival estimation (CSJSR-DoA) approach is proposed for wireless sensor array networks (WSAN). By exploiting the joint spatial and spectral correlations of acoustic sensor array data, the CSJSR-DoA approach provides reliable DoA estimation using randomly-sampled acoustic sensor data. Since random sampling is performed at remote sensor arrays, less data need to be transmitted over lossy wireless channels to the fusion center (FC), and the expensive source coding operation at sensor nodes can be avoided. To investigate the spatial sparsity, an upper bound of the coherence of incoming sensor signals is derived assuming a linear sensor array configuration. This bound provides a theoretical constraint on the angular separation of acoustic sources to ensure the spatial sparsity of the received acoustic sensor array signals. The Cram

\overset{´}{e}

r–Rao bound of the CSJSR-DoA estimator that quantifies the theoretical DoA estimation performance is also derived. The potential performance of the CSJSR-DoA approach is validated using both simulations and field experiments on a prototype WSAN platform. Compared to existing compressive sensing-based DoA estimation methods, the CSJSR-DoA approach shows significant performance improvement. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Multi-Sensor Information Fusion: Theory and Applications)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

297 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Systematic Error Modeling and Bias Estimation

by Feihu Zhang and Alois Knoll

Sensors 2016, 16(5), 729; https://doi.org/10.3390/s16050729 - 19 May 2016

Cited by 8 | Viewed by 5510

This paper analyzes the statistic properties of the systematic error in terms of range and bearing during the transformation process. Furthermore, we rely on a weighted nonlinear least square method to calculate the biases based on the proposed models. The results show the [...] Read more.

This paper analyzes the statistic properties of the systematic error in terms of range and bearing during the transformation process. Furthermore, we rely on a weighted nonlinear least square method to calculate the biases based on the proposed models. The results show the high performance of the proposed approach for error modeling and bias estimation. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Multi-Sensor Information Fusion: Theory and Applications)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

Back to TopTop