Blum Distributing multiple sensors over some region for the purpose of detecting a signal in noise is becoming increasingly attractive. The majority of the research work concerning the design of such schemes has focused on signal detection problems where a complete observation model which categorizes the environment under consideration is known. This research deals with distributed detection schemes for cases where a complete observation model is not available due to incomplete knowledge of the operating environment. This is an extremely practical case which has applications in air traffic control, radar weather monitoring, and other radar and sonar systems. Robustness results for important cases with alternative hypothesis which are not simple, finite observation sample sizes, dependent observations, and non-additive observations are being sought. The plan to construct these schemes focuses on applying the theory of minimax robust statistics. Cases with nonstationary, possibly non- Gaussian background environments and possibly dependent observations are also being investigated.
