  In this paper we consider a network of spatially distributed sensors which
collect measurement samples of a spatial field, and aim at estimating in a
distributed way (without any central coordinator) the entire field by suitably
fusing all network data. We propose a general probabilistic model that can
handle both partial knowledge of the physics generating the spatial field as
well as a purely data-driven inference. Specifically, we adopt an Empirical
Bayes approach in which the spatial field is modeled as a Gaussian Process,
whose mean function is described by means of parametrized equations. We
characterize the Empirical Bayes estimator when nodes are heterogeneous, i.e.,
perform a different number of measurements. Moreover, by exploiting the
sparsity of both the covariance and the (parametrized) mean function of the
Gaussian Process, we are able to design a distributed spatial field estimator.
We corroborate the theoretical results with two numerical simulations: a
stationary temperature field estimation in which the field is described by a
partial differential (heat) equation, and a data driven inference in which the
mean is parametrized by a cubic spline.
