Architectures of sensor networks for biological and chemical agent detection and identification

A network for detecting biological agents, the network comprising:

• a plurality of sensors for detecting agents in multiple areas and generating a signal comprising a probability of accuracy;
• a plurality of integrating controllers communicatively coupled to selected groups of sensors protecting each area for receiving the signals from the sensors to determine whether such agents are a threat to a respective area with a greater probability than any individual sensor;
• and
• an operating controller that receives information propagated to it from the integrating controllers and performs data fusion to determine a final decision for the entire area under protection wherein the operating controller comprises an evidence accrual method for performing the data fusion.

A method of designing a network for detecting threats from biological and chemical agents, the method comprising:

• determining a probability of detection for each of multiple sensors for a given threat;
• generating an algorithm for decision fusion for each of multiple local groups of sensors;
• and
• generating an algorithm for decision fusion for a combination of the multiple local groups of sensors.