Conflict management in information fusion with belief functions

TL;DR

This paper discusses the concept of conflict in information fusion using belief functions, examining existing measures and approaches for managing conflict during the combination of imperfect sources.

Contribution

It provides a review and discussion of conflict measures and management strategies within the belief functions framework for information fusion.

Findings

Analysis of the interpretation of conflict in belief functions

Comparison of existing conflict measures

Discussion on conflict management approaches

Abstract

In Information fusion, the conflict is an important concept. Indeed, combining several imperfect experts or sources allows conflict. In the theory of belief functions, this notion has been discussed a lot. The mass appearing on the empty set during the conjunctive combination rule is generally considered as conflict, but that is not really a conflict. Some measures of conflict have been proposed and some approaches have been proposed in order to manage this conflict or to decide with conflicting mass functions. We recall in this chapter some of them and we propose a discussion to consider the conflict in information fusion with the theory of belief functions.