Optimal strategies for distributed detection over multiaccess channels

In this paper, we consider the problem of distributed detection with binary sensors over a noisy multiaccess channel. Under the assumption of conditionally independent sensor observations, we investigate the optimal decision regions at the fusion centre. For a special case, it is shown that the optimal fusion rule can be reduced to a simple threshold test on the signal received by the fusion centre. We will demonstrate that the traditional amplitude-scaling approach to satisfy the power constraint is suboptimal. With a given power budget, a solution featuring in the joint optimization of the local mapping rule and the fusion rule is proposed and is shown to lead to a gain in performance.