High Level Information Fusion Developments, Issues, and Grand Challenges Fusion2010 Panel Discussion Erik Blasch Defence R&D Canada-Valcartier Québec City, QC, Canada erik.blasch@drdc-rddc.gc.ca James Llinas SUNY – Buffalo Buffalo, NY, USA llinas@buffalo.edu Dale Lambert Defence Science & Tech. Org. Edinburgh, SA, Australia dale.lambert@dsto.defence.gov.au Pierre Valin Defence R&D Canada-Valcartier Québec City, QC, Canada pierre.valin@drdc-rddc.gc.ca Subrata Das Xerox Grenoble, France subrata.das@xrce.xerox.com Chee Chong BAE Systems Los Altos, CA, USA chee.chong@baesystems.com Mitch Kokar Northeastern University Cambridge, MA, USA kokar@coe.neu.edu Elisa Shahbazian OODA Technologies Montréal, QC, Canada elisa.shahbazian@ooda.ca Abstract – The goal of the High-Level Information Fusion (HLIF) Panel Discussion is to present contemporary HLIF advances and developments to determine unsolved grand challenges and issues. The discussion will address the issues between low-level (signal processing and object state estimation and characterization) and high-level information fusion (control, situational understanding, and relationships to the environment). Specific areas of interest include modeling (situations, environments), representations (semantic, knowledge, and complex), systems design (scenario-based, user-based, distributed- agent) and evaluation (measures of effectiveness and empirical case studies). The goal is to address the contemporary operational and strategic issues in information fusion system design. Keywords: Fusion, Situational/Impact Assessment, Resource/Sensor Management, User Refinement 1 Panel Motivation High-level Information Fusion (HLIF) has been of considerable interest to the fusion community ever since the development of the fusion process models. The low- level versus high-level distinction was made evident in the seminal text on the subject by Waltz and Llinas, Multisensor Data Fusion, in “Figure 1.1 Elements of a basic data fusion system.” [1] While many discussions in HLIF have been coordinated in the past decade at the fusion conferences, including other panel discussions, there is a need to gather contemporary insights into the ongoing challenges. Recent HLIF texts include: Mathematical Techniques in Multisensor Data Fusion [2], Concepts, Models, and Tools for Information Fusion [3], High-Level Fusion [4], and Handbook of Multisensor Data Fusion, [5-6]. 1.1 Panel Organization and Discussion Overview For this panel, experts were compiled based on various research thrusts: Modeling: Lambert, Das, Kokar Representation: Blasch, Valin, Kokar Systems Design: Llinas, Das, Chong Decision Support: Valin, Llinas, Shahbazian Evaluation Methods: Blasch, Llinas, Valin The HLIF panel discussion’s goal is to highlight the unsolved problems and concerns to motivate the information fusion community towards systems-level solutions. The panelists’ expert perspectives are based on three areas: (1) previous panel discussions and summaries, (2) an integrated list of HLIF challenges, and (3) companion papers presented at the Fusion2010 conference (note we switch to Fusion10 to refer to the conference). 1.2 Previous Related Panel Discussions Panel discussions provide a valuable resource to the community to overview the current techniques and provide areas of concern for future research. Previous Fusion Conference panel discussion papers related to HLIF include knowledge representation (Fusion05) [7], resource management coordination with situation and threat assessment (Fusion06) [8, 9, 10], agent-based design (Fusion07) [11], and HLIF challenges (Fusion08) [12]. Three panel discussions were conducted at Fusion09 without papers: I. Kadar, M. Sudit, A. Steinberg, J. Roy, G. Toth, and J. Salerno, Issues and Challenges in Higher-Level Fusion Threat and Impact Assessment. G. Toth, M. Kokar, M. Liggins, G. Powell, J. Salerno, M. Endsley, A. Pfeffer, C. Knoblock, Directions for Higher- Level Fusion Research, Needs and Capabilities. D. Lambert, M. Hinman, E. Bossé, and C. Blackman, A Coalition Approach to Higher-Level Fusion. Many of the authors of this Fusion10 HLIF panel coordinated on previous publications, but continual refinement of HLIF contemporary are desired. The panel discussion follows from a day-long event special session. There are most likely other papers at Fusion10 that are related that would validate good questions from the audience to the panelists. Many of the participants to the special session would be encouraged to voice their opinions and questions to the moderated panel.