Hybrid intelligent control concepts for optimal data fusion

In the post-Cold War era, Naval surface ship operations will be largely conducted in littoral waters to support regional military missions of all types, including humanitarian and evacuation activities, and amphibious mission execution. Under these conditions, surface ships will be much more isolated and vulnerable to a variety of threats, including maneuvering antiship missiles. To deal with these threats, the optimal employment of multiple shipborne sensors for maximum vigilance is paramount. This paper characterizes the sensor management problem as one of intelligent control, identifies some of the key issues in controller design, and presents one approach to controller design which is soon to be implemented and evaluated. It is argued that the complexity and hierarchical nature of problem formulation demands a hybrid combination of knowledge-based methods and scheduling techniques from 'hard' real-time systems theory for its solution.