An information fusion and decision method based on belief-discount and probability ranking of focal elements

Considering that it is hard to obtain the prior information of node location using Bayesian inference based positioning methods, a Dempster-Shafer based information fusion and decision method for indoor positioning is proposed in the paper. The Pignistic probability is adopted to reflect the conflict on belief assignment. The evidence pretreatment using belief-discount of the focal elements is implemented according to the conflict degree. The method can eliminate one ballot veto and Zadeh's paradox during positioning by fusing pretreated evidences. According to the distribution functions of two focal elements on their own belief intervals, the probabilities ranking in a descending order on the whole belief interval are calculated respectively and taken as the basis of decision-making for the focal elements interlaping on the belief intervals. The results of the examples indicate that the proposed method is consistent with the essence of evidence theory in the fusion of conflict evidences, especially, it can accelerate the convergence and reduce the decision risk.