ABSTRACT
Expert system approaches are much needed to provide not only significant performance improvement but also to execute expert level tasks, heretofore undone, quickly and reliably. In signal and data processing, good progress has been made in deriving contact localization and motion analysis approaches. The outputs of such approaches typically are range, depth, course, and speed of a contact. An expert system is a computing system which implements organized knowledge on some specific area of human expertise. As the expert system grows, it progressively meets the demands for multisensor integration, multicontact tracking, and other complex situations in difficult ocean environments. This chapter delineates the system elements for realistic contact tracking. A design concept is presented taking into account the structured and distinguishing, as well as unstructured and fuzzy, characteristics of sensors, contacts, signal analysis/pattern recognition systems, and underwater acoustic environments.
