ABSTRACT
One of the most important areas of research in the field of control and estimation is decentralized (or distributed) data fusion. The motivation for decentralization is that it can provide a degree of scalability and robustness that cannot be achieved with traditional centralized architectures. In industrial applications, decentralization offers the possibility of producing plug-and-play systems in which sensors can be slotted in and out to optimize a tradeoff between price and performance. This has significant implications for military systems as well because it can dramatically reduce the time required to incorporate new computational and sensing components into fighter aircraft, ships, and other types of platforms.
