Replica Voting Based Mechanisms for Dissemination of Multi-modal Surveillance Data

Surveillance applications consist of computational devices that collect data representing the external environment (e.g., terrain conditions and vehicle tracking). The data collected is prone to errors because the processing algorithms in devices often have only limited capabilities that result in a fuzzy and imprecise representation of the external event. Here, replicating the devices and voting on the environment data collected by them enhances the trust-worthiness of data reported to the application. The paper describes a cooperation mechanism that embodies two complementary functions: "replication" of devices and "voting" among devices. Aided by domain-specific semantic information about the object space being sensed (e.g., a hostile terrain), we infuse methods to report events with a high degree of confidence.