Finding Explanations in AI Fusion of Electro-Optical/Passive Radio-Frequency Data

Abstract

In the Information Age, the widespread usage of blackbox algorithms makes it difficult to understand how data is used. The practice of sensor fusion to achieve results is widespread, as there are many tools to further improve the robustness and performance of a model. In this study, we demonstrate the utilization of a Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM-CCA) model for the fusion of Passive RF (P-RF) and Electro-Optical (EO) data in order to gain insights into how P-RF data are utilized. The P-RF data are constructed from the in-phase and quadrature component (I/Q) data processed via histograms, and are combined with enhanced EO data via dense optical flow (DOF). The preprocessed data are then used as training data with an LSTM-CCA model in order to achieve object detection and tracking. In order to determine the impact of the different data inputs, a greedy algorithm (explainX.ai) is implemented to determine the weight and impact of the canonical variates provided to the fusion model on a scenario-by-scenario basis. This research introduces an explainable LSTM-CCA framework for P-RF and EO sensor fusion, providing novel insights into the sensor fusion process that can assist in the detection and differentiation of targets and help decision-makers to determine the weights for each input.