Data fusion for detecting sonar contacts from multiple sensors: the two sensor case

The detection performance obtained by combining the output of two sensors is considered. Four combination methods are analyzed and compared: combine by summing the signals; make 0,1 decisions at the sensors and OR the decisions; use the 0,1 decisions in an AND detector; sum threshold signals to make detections summing the threshold signals provides a system designer with tradeoffs between message rate from the sensor to the detection processor, prob(false alarm), and prob(detection). The comparisons also show that the OR detector performance is much better than the AND performance if there is a large difference in signal levels at the two sensors