Multi-sensor Fusion

Abstract

In the previous chapters, we have discussed issues concerning hardware, communication and network topologies for the practical deployment of Body Sensor Networks (BSNs). The pursuit of low power miniaturised distributed sensing under a patient’s natural physiological conditions has also imposed significant technical challenges on integrating information from what is often heterogeneous, incomplete and error-prone sensor data. For BSNs, the nature of errors can be attributed to a number of sources; but motion artefacts, inherent limitations and possible malfunctions of the sensors along with communication errors are the main causes of concern. In practice, it is desirable to rely on sensors with redundant or complementary data to maximise the information content and reduce both systematic errors and random artefacts. This, in essence, is the main drive for multi-sensor fusion, which is concerned with the synergistic use of multiple sources of information.