Emitter detection system design with range dependent observations

We consider the detection of an emitter using multiple sensors. Since the emitter location is unknown, the observation depends on the range between the emitter and the sensor. We seek to optimize the detection performance by choosing the sensor locations against the least favorable distribution of the emitter location. Both centralized and distributed configurations are studied where one seeks to maximize the detection probability under a false alarm constraint. Numerical examples are given to compare the performance gap between the centralized and distributed detection schemes under low signal-to-noise ratio.