Revisiting the JDL Data Fusion Model II

This paper suggests refinements and extensions of the JDL Data Fusion Model, the standard process model used for a multiplicity of community purposes. However, this Model has not been reviewed in accordance with (a) the dynamics of world events and (b) the changes, discoveries, and new methods in both the data fusion research and development community and related IT technologies. This paper suggests ways to revise and extend this important model. Proposals are made regarding (a) improvements in the understanding of internal processing within a fusion node and (b) extending the model to include (1) remarks on issues related to quality control, reliability, and consistency in DF processing, (2) assertions about the need for co-processing of abductive/ inductive and deductive inferencing processes, (3) remarks about the need for and exploitation of an onto logicallybased approach to DF process design, and ( 4) extensions to account for the case of Distributed Data Fusion (DDF).