Distributed signal detection with serial structures

In this paper, we consider a serial distributed detection network consisting of N sensors. We assume that the observations at different sensors are conditionally dependent, and optimize the system performance under Bayesian criterion. The necessary conditions for optimal sensor decision rules are obtained, and from which it is seen that the optimal sensor decision rules are coupled and are generally not likelihood ratio tests. In cases of independent sensor observations, the optimal sensor decision rules can be reduced to likehood ratio tests, and in such cases the problem of finding optimal detection scheme reduces to the problem of finding optimal threshold values of the sensors