This paper presents a new multi-sensor optimal information fusion criterion weighted by matrices in the linear minimum variance sense, it is equivalent to the maximum likelihood fusion criterion under the assumption of normal distribution. Based on this optimal fusion criterion, a general multi-sensor optimal information fusion decentralized Kalman filter with a two-layer fusion structure is given for discrete time linear stochastic control systems with multiple sensors and correlated noises. The first fusion layer has a netted parallel structure to determine the cross covariance between every pair of faultless sensors at each time step. The second fusion layer is the fusion center that determines the optimal fusion matrix weights and obtains the optimal fusion filter. Comparing it with the centralized filter, the result shows that the computational burden is reduced, and the precision of the fusion filter is lower than that of the centralized filter when all sensors are faultless, but the fusion filter has fault tolerance and robustness properties when some sensors are faulty. Further, the precision of the fusion filter is higher than that of each local filter. Applying it to a radar tracking system with three sensors demonstrates its effectiveness. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.