ABSTRACT
Data fusion is the process of combining sensory information from different sources into one representational data format. The source of information may come from different sensors that provide information about completely different aspects of the system and its environment; or that provide information about the same aspect of the system and its environment, but with different signal quality or frequency. Data fusion is a large research area with various applications and methods. In addition to having a thorough understanding of various data fusion methods, it is useful to understand which methods most appropriately fit the corresponding aspects of a particular application. For planning, guidance, and control applications it is critical that the state of the vehicle be accurately estimated. For these applications, the state vector of the vehicle includes the three-dimensional position, velocity, and attitude. Because the state of most physical systems evolve in continuous time, continuous-time dynamic models are of interest.
