# Design and performance analysis of a fully distributed source detection algorithm for WSNs

## TL;DR

This paper presents a fully distributed source detection algorithm for wireless sensor networks that efficiently cooperates among nodes to detect signals without central coordination, with performance close to the optimal global test.

## Contribution

It introduces a novel distributed GLR-based detection scheme that requires minimal communication and local network knowledge, suitable for resource-constrained WSNs.

## Key findings

- Distributed GLR test matches global test performance.
- Algorithm requires few communication exchanges.
- Effective with limited measurements per sensor.

## Abstract

In this article, we consider the detection of a localized source emitting a signal using a wireless sensor network (WSN). We consider that geographically distributed sensor nodes obtain energy measurements and compute cooperatively and in a distributed manner a statistic to decide if the source is present or absent without the need of a central node or fusion center (FC). We first start from the continuous-time signal sensed by the nodes and obtain an equivalent discrete-time hypothesis testing problem. Secondly, we propose a fully distributed scheme, based on the well-known generalized likelihood ratio (GLR) test, which is suitable for a WSN, where resources such as energy and communication bandwidth are typically scarce. In third place, we consider the asymptotic performance of the proposed GLR test. The derived results provide an excellent matching with the scenario in which only a finite amount of measurements are available at each sensor node. We finally show that the proposed distributed algorithm performs as well as the global GLR test in the considered scenarios, requiring only a small number of communication exchanges between nodes and a limited knowledge about the network structure and its connectivity.