Quantization and distributed detection

In many detection systems separated sensors and a central processor are used. Because of constraints on communications, all the information from the sensors cannot be sent to the central processor. This makes the perception of the system less accurate and degrades a performance. Previous studies have considered the case in which a detection procedure is realized at each sensor. A novel approach is presented within the framework of quantization, and the two procedures are compared in a Gaussian noise environment. It is shown that the quantized structure achieves better performance. The optimization of quantized systems according to the Neyman-Pearson criterion is shown to be difficult. Using results concerning time quantization, the optimum system for the deflection criterion is considered