MEDUSA

The overall goal of the MEDUSA project is to realize a robust, high-performance, integrated, intelligent, autonomous and versatile multi-sensor data fusion grid. This deliverable will significantly improve Situational Awareness and Command and Control in the context of force protection in urban environments - by providing a comprehensive Operational Ground Picture. In providing such, the project considers the need to address current or prospective ‘information overload’ conditions and generating both the deliverable content and its means of delivery - based on ‘relevance’.

The approach of the project is designed to address an already acknowledged capability shortfall specifically in the following area: Fusion of multiple - as opposed to individual types of information - relevant to force protection in urban environments

In addressing this subject, an extensive MEDUSA project team has been assembled to consolidate a range of skills and disciplines that will allow specialist work to be performed comprehensively:

• Addressing a range of sensor types inclusive of acoustic, video (inclusive of visible and infra-red bands), magnetic, motion detection, CBR and ‘through the wall’ radars. Additional focus will be placed on ground soldier wearable sensors, thus enabling participants to become both producers and consumers of fused, dynamic information relative to their position - and the passing of this SA information across a hierarchical C2 structure;
• Enabling fusion of multi-sensor data with contextual information and in particular with 3D GIS and digital terrain data;
• Developing new algorithms improving the effectiveness of existing single sensor inputs in terms of data accuracy, time correlation and sensor coverage, as well as resolving ambiguities generated in the process of multi-sensor data fusion;
• Improving algorithms enabling automatic detection, recognition and tracking.

All the above will be developed within a novel MEDUSA Sensor Fusion Grid which will allow improved situational awareness and decision support in the C2. In addition, the project incorporates the development of a ‘demonstrator’ which clearly demonstrate the various technology deliverables and will illustrate, among the others, a capability for users to select various combinations or ‘sets’ of sensors and associated contextual information types.

Thus the MEDUSA project inherently enables the linking of improvements and advancement of TRLs in data fusion per se, the associated algorithms, the sensor network and summarily giving rise to enhanced urban environment forces protection and SA superiority.