Fusion Techniques for Reliable Information: A Survey <s> Blackboard System (BS) <s> Non-destructive evaluation is widely used in the manufacturing industry for the detection and characterisation of defects. Typical techniques include visual, magnetic particle, fluorescent dye penetrant, ultrasonic, and eddy current inspection. This paper presents a multi-agent approach to combining image data such as these for quality control. The use of distributed agents allows the speed benefits of parallel processing to be realised, facilitating increased levels of detection through the use of high resolution images. The integration of multi-sensor devices and the fusion of their multi-modal outputs has the potential to provide an increased level of certainty in defect detection and identification. It may also allow the detection and identification of defects that cannot be detected by an individual sensor. This would reduce uncertainty and provide a more complete picture of aesthetic and structural integrity than is possible from a single data source. ::: ::: A blackboard architecture, DARBS (Distributed Algorithmic and Rule-based Blackboard System), has been used to manage the processing and interpretation of image data. Rules and image processing routines are allocated to intelligent agents that communicate with each other via the blackboard, where the current understanding of the problem evolves. Specialist agents register image segments into a common coordinate system. An intensity-based algorithm eliminates the landmark extraction that would be required by feature-based registration techniques. Once registered, pixel-level data fusion is utilised so that both complementary and redundant data can be exploited. The modular nature of the blackboard architecture allows additional sensor data to be processed by the addition or removal of specialised agents. <s> BIB001 </s> Fusion Techniques for Reliable Information: A Survey <s> Blackboard System (BS) <s> This paper presents concept and first implementation of a sensor system blackboard concept (S2B2). S2B2 is designed as a data store surrounded by software modules that operate on the blackboard. The blackboard is implemented as the only communication medium between modules within the sensor node. Modules can also transparently communicate with other modules even if they are hosted on a remote, different type of sensor node thus allowing true heterogeneity. The S2B2 module concept enables fine-grained decoupling of software functionality and separation of concerns. This allows rapid prototyping of functionality and simplifies real-time testing and debugging. The S2B2 provides the basis for integration of PC based and sensor node based applications. This paper introduces concept and architecture of S2B2 and shows the potential of the approach by presenting an example implementation. First results show that the system shortens programming time by at least 30%. <s> BIB002
BS are designed for data storing in sensor systems, which surrounded by software modules operated on the blackboard. BS is implemented as the communication medium among modules within the sensor nodes in BIB002 . Distributed algorithmic and rule-based system has been used to manage the processing and the interpretation of the image data for context-aware BIB001 .