Evidence combination based on prospect theory for multi-sensor data fusion

Multi-sensor data fusion (MSDF) is an efficient technology to enhance the performance of the system with the involvement of different kinds of sensors, which are broadly utilized in many fields at present. However, the data obtained from multi-sensors may have different degrees of uncertainty in the practical applications. Evidence theory is very useful to convey and manage uncertainty without a priori probability, so that it has been proverbially adopted in the information fusion fields. However, in the face of conflicting evidences, it has the possibility of producing counterintuitive results via conducting the Dempster’s combination rule (DCR). To solve the above-mentioned issue, a hybrid MSDF method is exploited through integrating a newly defined evidential credibility measure of evidences based on prospect theory and the evidence theory. More specifically, a series of concepts for the evidential credibility measure are first presented, including the local credibility degree, global credibility degree, evidential credibility estimation and credibility prospect value function to comprehensively describe the award and punish grades in terms of credible evidence and incredible evidence, respectively. Based on the above researches, an appropriate weight for each evidence can be obtained. Ultimately, the weight of each evidence is leveraged to amend the primitive evidences before conducting DCR. The results attained in the experiments demonstrate that the hybrid MSDF approach is efficient and superior to handle conflict evidences as well as the application in data fusion problems. •A new credibility function is devised to express gains and losses of evidences.•An evidential credibility measure is exploited based on prospect theory.•A hybrid method for multi-sensor data fusion is proposed.•The proposed method is effective and superior.