06 - An efficient approximation scheme for distributed multiple hypothesis testing
Papastavrou · 1994
In the general distributed detection problem a set of decision makers (DMs) receive observations of the environment and transmit finite-valued messages to other DMs according to prespecified communication protocols . A designated primary DM makes the final decision on one of the alternative hypotheses . All DMs make decisions so as to optimize a measure of organizational performance . Since the quest for optimality in problems in this framework is associated with great computational and inherent complexity, simple approximate solutions which take into consideration the specific characteristics of the problem should be employed . This approach is demonstrated by addressing the issues involved with reducing a complex Wary hypothesis testing problem into a sequence of simpler binary hypothesis testing subproblems . An approximate decision scheme is derived that is computationally easy to implement and performs very well by exploiting the structure of the alternative hypotheses of each particular problem.