Querying distributed multimedia databases and data sources for sensor data fusion

Sensor data fusion imposes a number of novel requirements on query languages and query processing techniques. A spatial/temporal query language called (Sigma)QL has been proposed to support the retrieval and fusion of multimedia information from multiple sources and databases. In this paper we investigate fusion techniques, multimedia data transformations and (Sigma)QL query processing techniques for sensor data fusion. Fusion techniques including fusion by the merge operation, the detection of moving objects, and the incorporation of belief values, have been developed. An experimental prototype has been implemented and tested to demonstrate the feasibility of these techniques.