Robust distributed fusion for system with randomly uncertain sensor estimation error cross-covariance

In a distributed estimation system, the local sensor estimates are transferred to fusion center and fused to be an optimal estimation according to some criterion. The well-known best linear unbiased estimation (BLUE) fusion optimally combines the local estimates by minimising the covariance matrix of estimation errors. However, the BLUE fusion need know the cross-covariances of sensor estimation errors exactly, which are not attainable in most of practical applications. In this article, the random matrix is employed to describe the uncertainty of the estimation error covariance among the sensors. By minimising the estimation error covariance only for the most favorable realisations of the random matrix, we model it as an optimisation problem with chance constraint. With appropriate relaxation method, a robust linear unbiased estimation fusion is proposed analytically. Furthermore, an upper bound on the relaxation gap is proposed. Finally, we demonstrate through some numerical simulations that the presented estimation fusion always has smaller absolute estimation error than that of the covariance intersection filter.