Högskolan i Skövde

This paper discusses information fusion including its nature as well as some models for information fusion. Research on information fusion is dominated by defence applications and therefore, most models to a certain extent are defence specific; it is explained how these can be made more generic by adapting them. It is explained how the manufacturing sector can benefit from information fusion research; some analogies between issues in manufacturing and issues in military applications are given. A specific area in which the manufacturing sector can benefit from research on information fusion is the area of virtual manufacturing. Many issues related to decision support through modelling, simulation and synthetic environments are identical for manufacturing and defence applications. A particular area of interest for the future will be verification, validation and accreditation of modelling and simulation components for synthetic environments with various involved parties.