2,409 research outputs found
Sampling and Reconstruction of Spatial Fields using Mobile Sensors
Spatial sampling is traditionally studied in a static setting where static
sensors scattered around space take measurements of the spatial field at their
locations. In this paper we study the emerging paradigm of sampling and
reconstructing spatial fields using sensors that move through space. We show
that mobile sensing offers some unique advantages over static sensing in
sensing time-invariant bandlimited spatial fields. Since a moving sensor
encounters such a spatial field along its path as a time-domain signal, a
time-domain anti-aliasing filter can be employed prior to sampling the signal
received at the sensor. Such a filtering procedure, when used by a
configuration of sensors moving at constant speeds along equispaced parallel
lines, leads to a complete suppression of spatial aliasing in the direction of
motion of the sensors. We analytically quantify the advantage of using such a
sampling scheme over a static sampling scheme by computing the reduction in
sampling noise due to the filter. We also analyze the effects of non-uniform
sensor speeds on the reconstruction accuracy. Using simulation examples we
demonstrate the advantages of mobile sampling over static sampling in practical
problems.
We extend our analysis to sampling and reconstruction schemes for monitoring
time-varying bandlimited fields using mobile sensors. We demonstrate that in
some situations we require a lower density of sensors when using a mobile
sensing scheme instead of the conventional static sensing scheme. The exact
advantage is quantified for a problem of sampling and reconstructing an audio
field.Comment: Submitted to IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing May 2012; revised
Oct 201
Distributed video coding for wireless video sensor networks: a review of the state-of-the-art architectures
Distributed video coding (DVC) is a relatively new video coding architecture originated from two fundamental theorems namely, SlepianâWolf and WynerâZiv. Recent research developments have made DVC attractive for applications in the emerging domain of wireless video sensor networks (WVSNs). This paper reviews the state-of-the-art DVC architectures with a focus on understanding their opportunities and gaps in addressing the operational requirements and application needs of WVSNs
High-resolution distributed sampling of bandlimited fields with low-precision sensors
The problem of sampling a discrete-time sequence of spatially bandlimited
fields with a bounded dynamic range, in a distributed,
communication-constrained, processing environment is addressed. A central unit,
having access to the data gathered by a dense network of fixed-precision
sensors, operating under stringent inter-node communication constraints, is
required to reconstruct the field snapshots to maximum accuracy. Both
deterministic and stochastic field models are considered. For stochastic
fields, results are established in the almost-sure sense. The feasibility of
having a flexible tradeoff between the oversampling rate (sensor density) and
the analog-to-digital converter (ADC) precision, while achieving an exponential
accuracy in the number of bits per Nyquist-interval per snapshot is
demonstrated. This exposes an underlying ``conservation of bits'' principle:
the bit-budget per Nyquist-interval per snapshot (the rate) can be distributed
along the amplitude axis (sensor-precision) and space (sensor density) in an
almost arbitrary discrete-valued manner, while retaining the same (exponential)
distortion-rate characteristics. Achievable information scaling laws for field
reconstruction over a bounded region are also derived: With N one-bit sensors
per Nyquist-interval, Nyquist-intervals, and total network
bitrate (per-sensor bitrate ), the maximum pointwise distortion goes to zero as
or . This is shown to be possible
with only nearest-neighbor communication, distributed coding, and appropriate
interpolation algorithms. For a fixed, nonzero target distortion, the number of
fixed-precision sensors and the network rate needed is always finite.Comment: 17 pages, 6 figures; paper withdrawn from IEEE Transactions on Signal
Processing and re-submitted to the IEEE Transactions on Information Theor
Energy Consumption Of Visual Sensor Networks: Impact Of Spatio-Temporal Coverage
Wireless visual sensor networks (VSNs) are expected to play a major role in
future IEEE 802.15.4 personal area networks (PAN) under recently-established
collision-free medium access control (MAC) protocols, such as the IEEE
802.15.4e-2012 MAC. In such environments, the VSN energy consumption is
affected by the number of camera sensors deployed (spatial coverage), as well
as the number of captured video frames out of which each node processes and
transmits data (temporal coverage). In this paper, we explore this aspect for
uniformly-formed VSNs, i.e., networks comprising identical wireless visual
sensor nodes connected to a collection node via a balanced cluster-tree
topology, with each node producing independent identically-distributed
bitstream sizes after processing the video frames captured within each network
activation interval. We derive analytic results for the energy-optimal
spatio-temporal coverage parameters of such VSNs under a-priori known bounds
for the number of frames to process per sensor and the number of nodes to
deploy within each tier of the VSN. Our results are parametric to the
probability density function characterizing the bitstream size produced by each
node and the energy consumption rates of the system of interest. Experimental
results reveal that our analytic results are always within 7% of the energy
consumption measurements for a wide range of settings. In addition, results
obtained via a multimedia subsystem show that the optimal spatio-temporal
settings derived by the proposed framework allow for substantial reduction of
energy consumption in comparison to ad-hoc settings. As such, our analytic
modeling is useful for early-stage studies of possible VSN deployments under
collision-free MAC protocols prior to costly and time-consuming experiments in
the field.Comment: to appear in IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video
Technology, 201
Energy-efficient data acquisition for accurate signal estimation in wireless sensor networks
Long-term monitoring of an environment is a fundamental requirement for most wireless sensor networks. Owing to the fact that the sensor nodes have limited energy budget, prolonging their lifetime is essential in order to permit long-term monitoring. Furthermore, many applications require sensor nodes to obtain an accurate estimation of a point-source signal (for example, an animal call or seismic activity). Commonly, multiple sensor nodes simultaneously sample and then cooperate to estimate the event signal. The selection of cooperation nodes is important to reduce the estimation error while conserving the networkâs energy. In this paper, we present a novel method for sensor data acquisition and signal estimation, which considers estimation accuracy, energy conservation, and energy balance. The method, using a concept of âvirtual clusters,â forms groups of sensor nodes with the same spatial and temporal properties. Two algorithms are used to provide functionality. The âdistributed formationâ algorithm automatically forms and classifies the virtual clusters. The âround robin sample schemeâ schedules the virtual clusters to sample the event signals in turn. The estimation error and the energy consumption of the method, when used with a generalized sensing model, are evaluated through analysis and simulation. The results show that this method can achieve an improved signal estimation while reducing and balancing energy consumption
Rate-distortion Balanced Data Compression for Wireless Sensor Networks
This paper presents a data compression algorithm with error bound guarantee
for wireless sensor networks (WSNs) using compressing neural networks. The
proposed algorithm minimizes data congestion and reduces energy consumption by
exploring spatio-temporal correlations among data samples. The adaptive
rate-distortion feature balances the compressed data size (data rate) with the
required error bound guarantee (distortion level). This compression relieves
the strain on energy and bandwidth resources while collecting WSN data within
tolerable error margins, thereby increasing the scale of WSNs. The algorithm is
evaluated using real-world datasets and compared with conventional methods for
temporal and spatial data compression. The experimental validation reveals that
the proposed algorithm outperforms several existing WSN data compression
methods in terms of compression efficiency and signal reconstruction. Moreover,
an energy analysis shows that compressing the data can reduce the energy
expenditure, and hence expand the service lifespan by several folds.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1408.294
Cram\'er-Rao Bounds for Polynomial Signal Estimation using Sensors with AR(1) Drift
We seek to characterize the estimation performance of a sensor network where
the individual sensors exhibit the phenomenon of drift, i.e., a gradual change
of the bias. Though estimation in the presence of random errors has been
extensively studied in the literature, the loss of estimation performance due
to systematic errors like drift have rarely been looked into. In this paper, we
derive closed-form Fisher Information matrix and subsequently Cram\'er-Rao
bounds (upto reasonable approximation) for the estimation accuracy of
drift-corrupted signals. We assume a polynomial time-series as the
representative signal and an autoregressive process model for the drift. When
the Markov parameter for drift \rho<1, we show that the first-order effect of
drift is asymptotically equivalent to scaling the measurement noise by an
appropriate factor. For \rho=1, i.e., when the drift is non-stationary, we show
that the constant part of a signal can only be estimated inconsistently
(non-zero asymptotic variance). Practical usage of the results are demonstrated
through the analysis of 1) networks with multiple sensors and 2) bandwidth
limited networks communicating only quantized observations.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figures, This paper will appear in the Oct/Nov 2012 issue
of IEEE Transactions on Signal Processin
Controllable radio interference for experimental and testing purposes in wireless sensor networks
AbstractâWe address the problem of generating customized, controlled interference for experimental and testing purposes in Wireless Sensor Networks. The known coexistence problems between electronic devices sharing the same ISM radio band drive the design of new solutions to minimize interference. The validation of these techniques and the assessment of protocols under external interference require the creation of reproducible and well-controlled interference patterns on real nodes, a nontrivial and time-consuming task. In this paper, we study methods to generate a precisely adjustable level of interference on a specific channel, with lowcost equipment and rapid calibration. We focus our work on the platforms carrying the CC2420 radio chip and we show that, by setting such transceiver in special mode, we can quickly and easily generate repeatable and precise patterns of interference. We show how this tool can be extremely useful for researchers to quickly investigate the behaviour of sensor network protocols and applications under different patterns of interference, and we further evaluate its performance
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