  The energy scaling laws of multihop data fusion networks for distributed
inference are considered. The fusion network consists of randomly located
sensors distributed i.i.d. according to a general spatial distribution in an
expanding region. Among the class of data fusion schemes that enable optimal
inference at the fusion center for Markov random field (MRF) hypotheses, the
scheme with minimum average energy consumption is bounded below by average
energy of fusion along the minimum spanning tree, and above by a suboptimal
scheme, referred to as Data Fusion for Markov Random Fields (DFMRF). Scaling
laws are derived for the optimal and suboptimal fusion policies. It is shown
that the average asymptotic energy of the DFMRF scheme is finite for a class of
MRF models.
