Sensor fusion as a service

A sensor fusion system comprising:

• a smart object registry storing a definition of a plurality of smart objects, the smart objects being digital replicas of a plurality of sensors in a particular environment, the definition of the smart objects including data available from a sensor and/or a method inherent to the sensor;
• a sensor fusion tool store storing a plurality of algorithms available to fuse data received from a combination of sensors;
• and
• at least one processor configured to:
• receive a sensor fusion intent descriptive of desired data from a specified environment;
• determine candidate sensors present in the specified environment that may be used to obtain at least a portion of the desired data;
• and
• transform the sensor fusion intent into a sensor fusion manifest by selecting a plurality of the candidate sensors to obtain respective output data, and by defining at least one action to fuse the respective output data into the desired data, wherein the sensor fusion manifest includes an identification of the selected candidate sensors and the at least one action to fuse the respective output data from the selected candidate sensors into the desired data.