19 research outputs found
Submodularity and Optimality of Fusion Rules in Balanced Binary Relay Trees
We study the distributed detection problem in a balanced binary relay tree,
where the leaves of the tree are sensors generating binary messages. The root
of the tree is a fusion center that makes the overall decision. Every other
node in the tree is a fusion node that fuses two binary messages from its child
nodes into a new binary message and sends it to the parent node at the next
level. We assume that the fusion nodes at the same level use the same fusion
rule. We call a string of fusion rules used at different levels a fusion
strategy. We consider the problem of finding a fusion strategy that maximizes
the reduction in the total error probability between the sensors and the fusion
center. We formulate this problem as a deterministic dynamic program and
express the solution in terms of Bellman's equations. We introduce the notion
of stringsubmodularity and show that the reduction in the total error
probability is a stringsubmodular function. Consequentially, we show that the
greedy strategy, which only maximizes the level-wise reduction in the total
error probability, is within a factor of the optimal strategy in terms of
reduction in the total error probability
Detection Performance in Balanced Binary Relay Trees with Node and Link Failures
We study the distributed detection problem in the context of a balanced
binary relay tree, where the leaves of the tree correspond to identical and
independent sensors generating binary messages. The root of the tree is a
fusion center making an overall decision. Every other node is a relay node that
aggregates the messages received from its child nodes into a new message and
sends it up toward the fusion center. We derive upper and lower bounds for the
total error probability as explicit functions of in the case where
nodes and links fail with certain probabilities. These characterize the
asymptotic decay rate of the total error probability as goes to infinity.
Naturally, this decay rate is not larger than that in the non-failure case,
which is . However, we derive an explicit necessary and sufficient
condition on the decay rate of the local failure probabilities
(combination of node and link failure probabilities at each level) such that
the decay rate of the total error probability in the failure case is the same
as that of the non-failure case. More precisely, we show that if and only if
The value of feedback for decentralized detection in large sensor networks
We consider the decentralized binary hypothesis testing problem in networks with feedback, where some or all of the sensors have access to compressed summaries of other sensors' observations. We study certain two-message feedback architectures, in which every sensor sends two messages to a fusion center, with the second message based on full or partial knowledge of the first messages of the other sensors. Under either a Neyman-Pearson or a Bayesian formulation, we show that the asymptotically optimal (in the limit of a large number of sensors) detection performance (as quantified by error exponents) does not benefit from the feedback messages
Type-Based Random Access for Distributed Detection Over Multiaccess Fading Channels
The problem of distributed detection in a sensor network over multiaccess fading channels is considered. A random-access transmission scheme referred to as the type-based random access (TBRA) is proposed and analyzed. Error exponents of TBRA under noncoherent detection are characterized with respect to the mean transmission rate and the channel-coherence index. For the zero-mean multiaccess fading channels, it is shown that there exists an optimal mean-transmission rate that maximizes the detection-error exponents. The optimal mean-transmission rate can be calculated numerically or estimated using the Gaussian approximation, and it gives a sensor-activation strategy that achieves an optimal allocation of transmission energy to spatial and temporal domains. Numerical examples and simulations are used to compare TBRA with the conventional centralized time-division multiple access (TDMA) scheme. It is shown that for the zero-mean multiaccess fading channels, TBRA gives substantial improvement in the low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) regime whereas for the nonzero mean fading channels, TBRA performs better over a wide range of SNR
Type-Based Random Access for Distributed Detection Over Multiaccess Fading Channels
The problem of distributed detection in a sensor network over multiaccess fading channels is considered. A random-access transmission scheme referred to as the type-based random access (TBRA) is proposed and analyzed. Error exponents of TBRA under noncoherent detection are characterized with respect to the mean transmission rate and the channel-coherence index. For the zero-mean multiaccess fading channels, it is shown that there exists an optimal mean-transmission rate that maximizes the detection-error exponents. The optimal mean-transmission rate can be calculated numerically or estimated using the Gaussian approximation, and it gives a sensor-activation strategy that achieves an optimal allocation of transmission energy to spatial and temporal domains. Numerical examples and simulations are used to compare TBRA with the conventional centralized time-division multiple access (TDMA) scheme. It is shown that for the zero-mean multiaccess fading channels, TBRA gives substantial improvement in the low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) regime whereas for the nonzero mean fading channels, TBRA performs better over a wide range of SNR