Sensing capacity for target detection

We define a notion of ´sensing capacity´ that characterizes the ability of a sensor network to successfully distinguish among a discrete set of targets. Sensing capacity is defined as the maximum ratio of target positions to sensors for which inference of targets within a certain distortion is achievable. We demonstrate a lower bound on this capacity. Unlike previous work on ´sensor network capacity´, our notion of sensing capacity is defined by the sensing task itself, as opposed to external resource constraints such as power, communications, and processing.