This SpringerBrief evaluates the cooperative effort of sensor nodes to accomplish high-level tasks with sensing, data processing and communication. The metrics of network-wide convergence, unbiasedness, consistency and optimality are discussed through network topology, distributed estimation algorithms and consensus strategy. Systematic analysis reveals that proper deployment of sensor nodes and a small number of low-cost relays (without sensing function) can speed up the information fusion and thus improve the estimation capability of wireless sensor networks (WSNs). This brief also...