A modular decentralized architecture for multi-sensor data fusion

This paper describes a fully decentralized, transputer-based architecture for data fusion problems. This architecture takes the form of a network of sensor nodes, each with its own processing facility, which together do not require any central processor or any central communication facility. In this architecture, computation is performed locally and communication occurs between any two nodes. Such an architecture has many desirable properties including robustness to sensors failure, and flexibility to the addition or loss of one or more sensors. We first describe the decentralized data fusion algorithm and some of its consequences. We then describe a number of implementations of this algorithm: on a vision-based surveillance network, on a large process control rig comprising some 150 sensors, and on a modular mobile robot