Information refinery

Researchers at UB’s Center for Multisource Information Fusion analyze monolithic data sets to identify patterns and seek meaning from massive information. Their focus is on multiple-source information processing environments, such as in multiple-sensor or multiple-instrumented systems. These environments occur frequently in defense applications for advanced surveillance and reconnaissance systems, as well as in robotics, civil infrastructure systems, medical monitoring systems, intrusion detection systems, intelligent transportation systems, and environmental monitoring applications.

Center accomplishments include:

• Significantly improved ground-object tracking from combining multiple-sensor observations and a priori terrain and cultural-feature data

• More accurate and complete situational information on civil disaster conditions, derived from multiple field reports, to aid in casualty rescue and improved management of emergency-response equipment and vehicles

• Definition of a new and formally grounded methodology for the testing and evaluation of data fusion-capable aircraft

This highly multidisciplinary technology is also applicable to a wide array of nonmilitary problems. For example, the center is conducting research with Penn State in condition-based maintenance, making maintenance scheduling more cost effective by integrating sensors into the equipment. An NIH project is on multispectral mammography.

Other grant sponsors include the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the Office of Naval Research, the U.S. Army, and the National Security Agency. Top industrial partners are Lockheed-Martin and Boeing.

James Llinas, ATA professor of industrial and systems engineering, is director of the center.