Abstract: The distributed decision fusion has charming application prospects in the multi-sensor fields especially in wireless sensor networks by right of its reduced cost, increased reliability, increased survivability and reduced communication bandwidth requirement. However, the limited energy, the communication constraint, the fading channel and noise disturbance in wireless sensor networks challenge the theory of distributed decision fusion. It introduces the fundamentals of distributed detection and decision fusion. The theory and the advance of decision fusion in wireless sensor networks are reviewed in detail. The existent problems in this topic are analyzed and the further research directions are discussed

Key words: wireless sensor networks, distributed detection, decision fusion, likelihood-ratio test

摘要： 分布式决策融合方法以其成本低廉、可靠性高、生存能力强、带宽要求低等优点而在多传感器检测系统特别是无线传感器网络中具有广阔的应用前景，但是传感器网络具有有限的能量、有限的计算能力、有限的通讯带宽，以及存在无线信道衰落、传输错误和干扰噪声对分布式决策融合理论带来挑战。介绍了分布式检测和决策融合的理论基础，对近年来无线传感器网络下的分布式决策融合理论方法及其研究进展进行了详细的综述，分析并展望了该领域存在的问题和前景，探讨了进一步的研究方向。

关键词: 无线传感器网络, 分布式检测, 决策融合, 似然比检验