Theory of evidence and non-exhaustive frames of discernment: Plausibilities correction methods

Benefits gained by a multisource solution in various contexts of application are nowadays obvious. The goal of this interesting approach is both to capture benefits of sources and to minimize their limitations. Usually, each source is defined and modeled over a unique frame composed of the hypotheses to discern. Sources can then be merged by the combination process provided by the theory that enabled their modeling. On the other hand, this process is no more applicable to sources defined on different frames in terms of the hypotheses they consider. It is the case for example of two sources defined respectively on the frames {H1,H2} and {H2,H3}. This problem although frequently encountered in the development of operational systems has paradoxically not been extensively treated. In a previous article, we have already presented methods mainly based on a technique called "deconditioning" and that allow the combination of such sources. They are developed in the theory of evidence's framework, a priori the most appropriate for this problem. We complete our investigation by proposing in this article other methods based on the same framework. © 1998 Elsevier Science Inc.