Stationary and Mobile Target Detection using Mobile Wireless Sensor Networks

In this work, we study the target detection and tracking problem in mobile sensor networks, where the performance metrics of interest are probability of detection and tracking coverage, when the target can be stationary or mobile and its duration is finite. We propose a physical coverage-based mobility model, where the mobile sensor nodes move such that the overlap between the covered areas by different mobile nodes is small. It is shown that for stationary target scenario the proposed mobility model can achieve a desired detection probability with a significantly lower number of mobile nodes especially when the detection requirements are highly stringent. Similarly, when the target is mobile the coverage-based mobility model produces a consistently higher detection probability compared to other models under investigation.Comment: 7 pages, 12 figures, appeared in INFOCOM 201

Space-time percolation and detection by mobile nodes

Consider the model where nodes are initially distributed as a Poisson point process with intensity $\lambda$ over $\mathbb{R}^d$ and are moving in continuous time according to independent Brownian motions. We assume that nodes are capable of detecting all points within distance $r$ of their location and study the problem of determining the first time at which a target particle, which is initially placed at the origin of $\mathbb{R}^d$, is detected by at least one node. We consider the case where the target particle can move according to any continuous function and can adapt its motion based on the location of the nodes. We show that there exists a sufficiently large value of $\lambda$ so that the target will eventually be detected almost surely. This means that the target cannot evade detection even if it has full information about the past, present and future locations of the nodes. Also, this establishes a phase transition for $\lambda$ since, for small enough $\lambda$, with positive probability the target can avoid detection forever. A key ingredient of our proof is to use fractal percolation and multi-scale analysis to show that cells with a small density of nodes do not percolate in space and time.Comment: Published at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/14-AAP1052 in the Annals of Applied Probability (http://www.imstat.org/aap/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org