Distributed cell-averaging CFAR detection in dependent sensors

Constant false alarm rate detection is considered in a decentralized, two-sensor context. Cases with observations which are dependent from sensor to sensor are investigated, for which results have been lacking. The in-phase and quadrature components of the received narrowband observation at each sensor consist of a common weak random signal in additive Gaussian combined clutter and noise. The sensors use cell-averaging CFAR tests to each generate binary decisions which are sent to a fusion center. Optimal sensor thresholds are found and the performance of the best schemes using AND and OR fusion rules are compared. The ability of these schemes to maintain constant false alarm probability in the presence of clutter edges is also studied