ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book is concerned with the problem of developing scalable decentralized estimation and control algorithms for both linear and nonlinear multisensor systems. It shows that the motivation derives from two aspects of the work. The first point of motivation is the benefits of multisensor systems, in particular decentralized methods of data fusion and control. The second point derives from the limitations of existing decentralized methods. The book explains fully decentralized data fusion and control algorithms which do not exhibit the drawbacks of existing methods. It addresses both the problem of using reduced local models at sensor nodes and that of reducing communication and connection requirements. The book provides a number of theoretical and practical contributions in the area of decentralized estimation and control for multisensor systems and large scale systems.
