Situation assessment using cellular automata paradigm

The authors have developed algorithms based on the cellular automata (CA) paradigm, designed specifically to exploit the power of massively parallel processors. They introduce the CA concept and consider applications to flight situation assessment. The main objective of situation assessment is to recognize objects of interest and to determine their locations accurately. Both a priori and real-time data must be utilized. A CA consists of a 2D, 3D or higher-dimension grid of real or virtual processors that communicate to nearest neighbors to solve a variety of spatiotemporal problems. CAs may be viewed as abstract mathematical structures or as arrays or message-passing processors engaged in cooperatively resolving global issues. The algorithms have been developed on serial digital computers, utilizing thousands of virtual processors. They run very fast in either serial or parallel environments