Bringing the Market to Level 4 Fusion: Investigation of Auction Methods for Sensor Resource Allocation

Rapid evolution in sensor technology including distributed ground based sensors and devices such as smart dust have energized research efforts towards devising a theoretical foundation for sensor management and for multi-sensor data fusion. Features such as ubiquitous sensing, wide bandwidth communications and distributed processing provide both challenges and opportunities for sensor and process control and optimization. New sensors and wideband communications provide an information rich environment for users. However, limited sensor processing and resources and the heterogeneity of the contributing sensors make the utilization of such sensors a very challenging problem. Traditional optimization techniques used in level-4 fusion do not have the ability to address such an environment. This paper describes the results of a research study that investigated the potential of market-based resource allocation algorithms to improve the performance of multi-sensor network systems in complex observing