ABSTRACT
The goal of Combat Identifi cation (Combat ID or simply CID) fusion is to combine information at the appropriate information levels to derive a positive identi cation (ID) according to a classi cation structure. This in turn can help determine the allegiance of an object such as Friend, Neutral, or Hostile. Speci cally, the overarching goal of CID is to attain an accurate characterization of detected objects in the joint battlespace so that high-con dence, timely application of military options and weapon resources can occur. A visualization of this concept is shown in Figure 31.1.1
Figure 31.1 illustrates the essential problems with understanding, processing, and fusing information in this domain. No other fusion domain exists where not only are there multiple complexities such as friendly, hostile, and neutral relationships* to the identifying agent† in addition to environmental confusor effects, but there may be objects that are actively attempting to deceive and evade detection and classi cation. This makes the design of a fusion process more dif cult for CID than possibly for any other domain.
