Resource management and its interaction with level 2/3 fusion from the fusion06 panel discussion

Sensor resource management (or process refinement) is a element of any information fusion system. Common level 4 sensor management (SM) inter-relations to level 1 target tracking and identification have been developed in the literature. During Fusion06, a panel discussion was held to explore the challenges and issues pertaining to the interaction between SM and situation and threat assessment. This paper summarizes the key tenants of the discussion to filter vast experiences of the invited panel experts. The common themes were: (1) addressing the user in system management/control; (2) determining a standard set of metrics for optimization; (3) optimizing/evaluating fusion systems to deliver timely information needs; (4) dynamic updating for planning mission time-horizons; (5) joint optimization of objective functions at all levels; (6) L2/3 situation entity definitions for knowledge discovery, modeling, and information projection; and (7) addressing constraints for resource planning and scheduling.