Patent ID: 8612378

Claim:
A method for merging information originating from several sensors c 1 , c 2 , . . . , c n , n being the number of sensors, said method comprising the following steps: the acquisition of belief functions m 1 , m 2 , . . . , m n arising from the sensors c 1 , c 2 , . . . , c n , said belief functions m 1 , m 2 , . . . , m n being defined on a set of proposals Ω, wherein Ω is a space of possible worlds with finite cardinality and wherein Ø is the empty set, the calculation of latent belief structures LBS 1 , LBS 2 , . . . , LBS n for each belief function m 1 , m 2 , . . . , m n , said latent belief structures LBS 1 , LBS 2 , . . . , LBS n each comprising pairs of confidence and distrust functions (w 1 c , w 1 d ), (w 2 c , w 2 d ), . . . , (w n c , w n d ), wherein said sensors c 1 , c 2 , . . . , c n are non-independent and wherein it furthermore comprises the following steps: the calculation of a merged latent belief structure LBS m , said merged latent belief structure LBS m comprising a pair of functions w m c and w m d calculated by applying a so-called weak-rule function to the confidence and distrust functions (w 1 c , w 1 d ), (w 2 c , w 2 d ), . . . , (w n c , w n d ): w m c ( A )= w 1 c ( A ) w 2 c ( A ) . . . w n c ( A ), A⊂Ω w m d ( A )= w 1 d ( A ) w 2 d ( A ) . . . w n d ( A ), A⊂Ω w m c and w m d being defined on all the subsets A of Ω, the calculation of a probability distribution P m on the basis of the functions w m c and w m d , the calculation of commonality functions q m c and q m d on the basis of the functions w m c and w m d , the calculation of plausibility functions pl m c and pl m d on the basis of the commonality functions q m c and q m d , by using the following equations: p ⁢ ⁢ 1 m c ⁢ ( A ) = ∑ ∅ ≠ B ⊆ A ⁢ ( - 1 )  B  + 1 ⁢ q m c ⁡ ( B ) , A ∈ 2 Ω , p ⁢ ⁢ 1 m c ⁢ ( ∅ ) = 0 p ⁢ ⁢ 1 m d ⁢ ( A ) = ∑ ∅ ≠ B ⊆ A ⁢ ( - 1 )  B  + 1 ⁢ q m d ⁡ ( B ) , A ∈ 2 Ω , p ⁢ ⁢ 1 m d ⁢ ( ∅ ) = 0 wherein A and B are subsets of Ω, Ø is the empty set.