Censoring for Type-Based Multiple Access Scheme in Wireless Sensor Networks

In this paper, we consider binary hypothesis testing for distributed detection in Wireless Sensor Networks. Sensor nodes individually take a decision upon which hypothesis is currently present. Communication between sensor nodes and the Fusion Center is done through a Type-Based Multiple Access (TBMA) scheme, and the Fusion Center gives a global decision about the hypothesis under consideration. We consider the case where each sensor has the ability to "censor" transmission, meaning that a sensor node can locally withhold transmission if local observation is unreliable. The major contribution in this paper is to show that for the TBMA scheme with sensors sending binary decisions to the Fusion Center, censoring can achieve lower probability of decision error even if sufficient energy and/or rate of transmission is available.