Patent ID: 7478071

Claim:
A method for determining and assessing information to be collected from a set of information sources for a desired level of decision accuracy, the method comprising steps of: receiving a partial set of information from at least a subset of the information sources for a decision to be made; performing a minimax entropy-based test to determine an information source from which to next gather information that is most likely to improve the decision accuracy; performing a check based on a test selected from a group consisting of a mutual information entropy-based test and a conditional entropy-based test to determine whether the minimax entropy-based test generated a valid or an invalid result; and when the minimax entropy-based test is determined to have generated an invalid result, excluding the information source from the set of information sources to produce a set of remaining information sources, and repeating the minimax entropy-based test on the remaining information sources; and when the minimax entropy-based test is determined to have generated a valid result, performing a cost/benefit analysis to determine whether the information should be gathered from the information source; and when the cost/benefit analysis fails, excluding the information source from further consideration and repeating the minimax entropy-based test on the remaining information sources; and when the cost/benefit analysis succeeds, gathering the information from the information source; and performing a consistency check to determine the validity of the information gathered from the information source; and when the consistency check fails, excluding the information source from further consideration and repeating the minimax entropy-based test on the remaining information sources; and when the consistency check succeeds, gathering the information from the information source and adding the information to the partial set of information to produce an augmented partial set of information, and starting again with the step of performing the minimax entropy-based test on the augmented partial set of information, whereby the partial set of information is iteratively augmented with additional information until there is no further information to add or until adding further information would be cost-prohibitive; and determining a classification based on the partial set of information; wherein the information sources include a plurality of information sources selected from a group consisting of databases, sensors, and user inputs; wherein the sensors include sensors selected from a group consisting of seismic sensors, temperature sensors, acoustic sensors, infrared sensors, and radar sensors: and wherein the sensors are radar sensors, wherein the information gathered is information regarding at least one object, and wherein the method further comprises a step of using the information gathered to determine an object classification for each object about which information was gathered.