Data fusion enabled networks

High tempo battlefield requirements, rapidly evolving communications/information technologies and the need to include legacy components, call for a system-of- systems engineering approach in the development of data fusion enabled networks (DFEN). System-of- systems engineers are concerned with large scale interdisciplinary issues combining multiple, heterogeneous, distributed systems that are embedded in networks at multiple levels and multiple domains. These issues are also of concern to data fusion engineers because the networks being engineered to resolve the issues are the environment in which future data fusion systems must perform successfully. This paper is a description of a system-of-systems approach to the development of DFEN´s. Applying system-of-systems techniques, a DFEN software and hardware infrastructure is being developed The infrastructure is being developed as a capability within a network enabled C4ISR infrastructure, using a service oriented architecture (SOA) and a DFEN specific ontology. Within this framework, important aspects of data fusion system development can be addressed in a process-driven, scalable and evolvable manner.