Sensors surround us. Their outputs swamp our systems, consume our bandwidth and overwhelm our cognitive processes. Data fusion attempts to associate similar things and present the associated items in context. This is not a trivial thing.

Here are a few introductory articles on the subject originally presented at the 1999 IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems in Monterey, CA.This Special Session on Data Fusion was organised and co-chaired by Ian Glenn and Sean Midwood.

• An Introduction to Multi-Sensor Data Fusion, James Llinas and David Hall
• From GI Joe to Starship Trooper, David Hall and James Llinas
• A Multi-Sensor Data Fusion Algorithm for the USCG's Vessel Traffic Services System, Ian Glenn and Sean Midwood
• Microsimulation as a Tool for Target Tracking and State Estimation, Donald Brown and Louis Pittard
• Information Understanding: Integrating Data Fusion and Data Mining Processes, Edward Waltz
• Strategically-Controlled Information Fusion, Steven Flank
• The Canadian-Netherlands Collaboration on Multi-Sensor Data Fusion and Other Canada-NATO MSDF Activities, Eloi Bosse and Jean Roy