Overcoming effects of electromagnetic interference in warships through multi-sensor data fusion

The sensors onboard a warship viz., the radar systems, the sonar systems, the communication systems and the Electronic Support Measures (ESM) system, are the eyes and ears of the ship. Operational availability of these systems is an unavoidable necessity for the success of a mission. It is equally unavoidable that varied kinds of interactions exist amongst these systems, which manifest as electromagnetic interference. The degrading and sometimes destroying effects of electromagnetic interference are caused not only due to onboard emissions, but also due to sources external to the ship. In either case, this results in scarcity of information and consequently, difficulty in decision making, sometimes with grave operational consequences. Therefore, some kind of intelligent data/ information processing would be required, to enable fast and accurate decision-making. This paper explores the possibility of overcoming the pitfalls of information scarcity by fusion of sensor data, or data fusion, to yield reliable information even in the face of strong electromagnetic interference. Data fusion, by definition, is the process of combining diverse data from multiple sensors in such a way that the result provides more information than the sum of the individual sensors. It employs the concepts of redundancy, diversity and complementarity of information to achieve reliability and reduce ambiguity in decision making.