Target identification with multiple logical sonars using evidential reasoning and simple majority voting

In this study, physical models are used to model reflections from target primitives commonly encountered in a mobile robot's environment. These targets are differentiated by employing a multi-transducer pulse/echo system which relies on both amplitude and time-of-flight data, allowing more robust differentiation. Target features are generated as being evidentially tied to degrees of belief which are subsequently fused by employing multiple logical sonars at different geographical sites. Feature data from multiple logical sensors are fused with Dempster-Shafer rule of combination to improve the performance of classification by reducing perception uncertainty. Dempster-Shafer fusion results are contrasted with the results of combination of sensor beliefs through simple majority vote. The method is verified by experiments with a real sonar system. The evidential approach employed here helps to overcome the vulnerability of the echo amplitude to noise and enables the modeling of non-parametric uncertainty in real time.