18,721 research outputs found
Estimating distances via connectivity in wireless sensor networks
Distance estimation is vital for localization and many other applications in wireless sensor networks. In this paper, we develop a method that employs a maximum-likelihood estimator to estimate distances between a pair of neighboring nodes in a static wireless sensor network using their local connectivity information, namely the numbers of their common and non-common one-hop neighbors. We present the distance estimation method under a generic channel model, including the unit disk (communication) model and the more realistic log-normal (shadowing) model as special cases. Under the log-normal model, we investigate the impact of the log-normal model uncertainty; we numerically evaluate the bias and standard deviation associated with our method, which show that for long distances our method outperforms the method based on received signal strength; and we provide a Cramér-Rao lower bound analysis for the problem of estimating distances via connectivity and derive helpful guidelines for implementing our method. Finally, on implementing the proposed method on the basis of measurement data from a realistic environment and applying it in connectivity-based sensor localization, the advantages of the proposed method are confirmed. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
Robotic Wireless Sensor Networks
In this chapter, we present a literature survey of an emerging, cutting-edge,
and multi-disciplinary field of research at the intersection of Robotics and
Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) which we refer to as Robotic Wireless Sensor
Networks (RWSN). We define a RWSN as an autonomous networked multi-robot system
that aims to achieve certain sensing goals while meeting and maintaining
certain communication performance requirements, through cooperative control,
learning and adaptation. While both of the component areas, i.e., Robotics and
WSN, are very well-known and well-explored, there exist a whole set of new
opportunities and research directions at the intersection of these two fields
which are relatively or even completely unexplored. One such example would be
the use of a set of robotic routers to set up a temporary communication path
between a sender and a receiver that uses the controlled mobility to the
advantage of packet routing. We find that there exist only a limited number of
articles to be directly categorized as RWSN related works whereas there exist a
range of articles in the robotics and the WSN literature that are also relevant
to this new field of research. To connect the dots, we first identify the core
problems and research trends related to RWSN such as connectivity,
localization, routing, and robust flow of information. Next, we classify the
existing research on RWSN as well as the relevant state-of-the-arts from
robotics and WSN community according to the problems and trends identified in
the first step. Lastly, we analyze what is missing in the existing literature,
and identify topics that require more research attention in the future
Robust Localization from Incomplete Local Information
We consider the problem of localizing wireless devices in an ad-hoc network
embedded in a d-dimensional Euclidean space. Obtaining a good estimation of
where wireless devices are located is crucial in wireless network applications
including environment monitoring, geographic routing and topology control. When
the positions of the devices are unknown and only local distance information is
given, we need to infer the positions from these local distance measurements.
This problem is particularly challenging when we only have access to
measurements that have limited accuracy and are incomplete. We consider the
extreme case of this limitation on the available information, namely only the
connectivity information is available, i.e., we only know whether a pair of
nodes is within a fixed detection range of each other or not, and no
information is known about how far apart they are. Further, to account for
detection failures, we assume that even if a pair of devices is within the
detection range, it fails to detect the presence of one another with some
probability and this probability of failure depends on how far apart those
devices are. Given this limited information, we investigate the performance of
a centralized positioning algorithm MDS-MAP introduced by Shang et al., and a
distributed positioning algorithm, introduced by Savarese et al., called
HOP-TERRAIN. In particular, for a network consisting of n devices positioned
randomly, we provide a bound on the resulting error for both algorithms. We
show that the error is bounded, decreasing at a rate that is proportional to
R/Rc, where Rc is the critical detection range when the resulting random
network starts to be connected, and R is the detection range of each device.Comment: 40 pages, 13 figure
Coverage Protocols for Wireless Sensor Networks: Review and Future Directions
The coverage problem in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) can be generally
defined as a measure of how effectively a network field is monitored by its
sensor nodes. This problem has attracted a lot of interest over the years and
as a result, many coverage protocols were proposed. In this survey, we first
propose a taxonomy for classifying coverage protocols in WSNs. Then, we
classify the coverage protocols into three categories (i.e. coverage aware
deployment protocols, sleep scheduling protocols for flat networks, and
cluster-based sleep scheduling protocols) based on the network stage where the
coverage is optimized. For each category, relevant protocols are thoroughly
reviewed and classified based on the adopted coverage techniques. Finally, we
discuss open issues (and recommend future directions to resolve them)
associated with the design of realistic coverage protocols. Issues such as
realistic sensing models, realistic energy consumption models, realistic
connectivity models and sensor localization are covered
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