Year End Progress Report for ONR Young Investigator Grant N00014-97-1-0774

Abstract : 13. ABSTRACT (Maximum 200 Words) This research attempts to develop a fundamental understanding of the issues involved in the design and performance analysis of distributed signal detection schemes. Such knowledge is currently lacking. This is especially true for cases with statistically dependent observations from sensor to sensor, a practical case on which this research focuses. Some emphasis is being devoted to developing design algorithms, applications, and algorithms for image fusion. The goal of these studies is to produce tools and techniques for pressing practical problems. This report describes the progress made in the last year. The investigation produced several significant results that illustrate how little is really known about the underlying theory of distributed signal detection. For example, given a distributed scheme which uses a given number of bits for the decisions at all but the last sensor, we can show that the last sensor should not use more than a certain number of bits in its decision. If more bits are used at the last sensor, then the same performance can be obtained by using less bits, which implies lower speed communications.