Optimal decision fusion given sensor rules

When all the rules of sensor decision are known ,the optimal distributed decision fusion ,which relies only on the joint conditional probability densities , can be derived for very general decision systems. They include those systems with interdependent sensor observations and any network structure. It is also valid for m-ary Bayesian decision problems and binary problems under the Neyman- Pearson criterion. Local decision rules of a sensor with communication from other sensors that are optimal for the sensor itself are also presented ,which take the form of a generalized likelihood ratio test . Numerical examples are given to reveal some interesting phenomena that communication between sensors can improve performance of a senor decision ,but cannot guarantee to improve the global fusion performance when sensor rules were given before fusing.