BUGS ON A BUDGET: DISTRIBUTED SENSING WITH COST FOR REPORTING AND NONREPORTING
V. A. Pozdnyakov, John M. Steele · Probability in the Engineering and Informational Sciences · 2010
We consider a simple model of sequential decisions made by a fusion agent that receives binary-passive reports from distributed sensors. The main result is an explicit formula for the probability of making a decision before a fixed budget is exhausted. These results depend on the relationship between a special ruin problem for a “lazy random walk” and a traditional biased walk.