Recent Trends in Context Exploitation for Information Fusion and AI

Abstract

 AI is related to information fusion (IF). Many methods in AI that use perception and reasoning align to the functionalities of high-level IF (HLIF) operations that estimate situational and impact states. To achieve HLIF sensor, user, and mission management operations, AI elements of planning, control, and knowledge representation are needed. Both AI reasoning and IF inferencing and estimation exploit context as a basis for achieving deeper levels of understanding of complex world conditions. Open challenges for AI researchers include achieving concept generalization, response adaptation, and situation assessment. This article presents a brief survey of recent and current research on the exploitation of context in IF and discusses the interplay and similarities between IF, context exploitation, and AI. In addition, it highlights the role that contextual information can provide in the next generation of adaptive intelligent systems based on explainable AI. The article describes terminology, addresses notional processing concepts, and lists references for readers to follow up and explore ideas offered herein.