Information Fusion Building on the GPS Revolution, an Update

Zdzislaw H. “Stan” Lewantowicz

Abstract:	This paper builds on an earlier one, similar title, presented at the January 1997 ION National Technical Meeting. It is updated for this ION-GPS meeting, GPS Reference and Information Fusion session. The author feels the growing need to build the bridge (dialogue and collaboration) between the Reference (Navigation) and Information Fusion Communities, Department of Defense (DoD) and Military Services are leading a revolution in future warfare, building on lessons of Operation Desert Storm and technology revolutions. Joint Vision 2010 (JV20 10) ’21 identifies theater-wide information superiority as the foundation for this revolution, The Advanced Battlespace Information Management System (ABIS) ‘g]Task Force reports: .,. a federation of systems that formx an underlying grid of jlexible, shared, and assured information services and provides advanced capabilities in support of new command and control and force employment concepts. Fcrmer Chief of Staff of the Air Force (CSAF) Gen Ronald Fogleman had begun a revolutionary (in this author’s opinion) rebuilding of the US Air Force. Gen Michael Ryan, current CSAF, continues this transformation from a Cold War Air Force to the expeditionary Aerospace Force (eAF) of the 2 1‘1Century. The USAF Vision: Global Engagement: A Vision of the 21st Century Air Force documents the goals and the course that the Air Force has set to achieve such. One of the first key steps is the rebuilding the fragmented USAF Ccmmand and Control (C2) infrastructure into an flexible, rapidly adaptable, stateside-based core with minimum C2 projected forward to the fight. Overarching theme under the eAF C2 is: move information, not people to the fight. Each of these, and numerous other Air Force and Dc,D, studies and initiatives identifies information superiority as a key enabler of revolutionary warfare. An overwhelming amount of information is available to the warfighter. Information fusion technology (focus of the Information Fusion Community) integrated with operational concepts, enables transformation of collected daia into warfighters’ mission capability. Precise space/time (geometric) reference, the focus of the Navigation Community, is the foundation of information fusion IA]. A similar information and fusion framework and perspective is suggested for the exploding commercial information products and services.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 11th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GPS 1998) September 15 - 18, 1998 Nashville, TN
Pages:	865 - 872
Cite this article:	Lewantowicz, Zdzislaw H. “Stan”, "Information Fusion Building on the GPS Revolution, an Update," Proceedings of the 11th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GPS 1998), Nashville, TN, September 1998, pp. 865-872.
Full Paper:	ION Members/Non-Members: 1 Download Credit Sign In