Practical trade-offs in fusion architecture design

Since 1991, the Research and Development (R&D) group at Lockheed Martin Canada (LM Canada) has been developing and demonstrating the application of Multi-Source Data Fusion (MSDF) techniques for target tracking and identification within the Naval Command and Control (C2) for the HALIFAX Class frigates. The current C2 as well as the sensor suite of the HALIFAX Class were designed in the early 80s. For its time, the ship C2 architecture was both revolutionary and advanced. It has fully integrated and distributed C2, capable of combining information from all the data sources available on the frigate and presenting this information to all operators responsible for various sensor/weapon management and control taskS. While this system is very capable of supporting modern warfare, it is apparent that it must evolve to keep up with the advancements in threat and sensor technologies as well as to be able to cope with the increased information flow in a Network Centric Warfare. This paper provides a summary analyses performed for the selection of the Data Fusion architectures which would be most appropriate for the HALIFAX Class C2.