Analytic Sensor Rules for Optimal Distributed Decision Given $K$-Out-of-$L$ Fusion Rule Under Monte Carlo Approximation

Abstract

With the development of large-scale sensor networks, there is an increasing interest for high dimensional distributed decision fusion problem in statistical decision, machine learning, control theory, etc. In this article, we investigate the optimal sensor quantized rules of the distributed decision under a given fusion rule for conditionally dependent and high dimensional sensor observations. We provide a Monte Carlo importance sampling method to reduce the computational complexity of the distributed decision fusion. For the K-out-of-L rule, we derive a group of analytic sensor rules based on the necessary and sufficient condition of the optimal sensor rules. In term of efficiency, it is significantly better than the traditional iterative search algorithms, such as the Riemann sum approximation iteration algorithm. The analytic solution is also a general result since it does not rely on the specific K value of the K-out-of-L rule, the specific conditional probability density function and the dimension of sensor observations. Thus, it can be applied to multisensor decision fusion problems with high dimensional dependent sensor observations. For the general fusion rules rather than the K-out-of-L rule, the Monte Carlo Gauss-Seidel algorithm is also provided. The numerical examples demonstrate the effectiveness of the analytic solution and the Monte Carlo Gauss-Seidel algorithm.