Distributed network control for mobile multi-modal wireless sensor networks

• Published in: Journal of parallel and distributed computing Vol. 71; no. 3; pp. 460 - 470
• Main Authors: Bein, Doina, Wen, Yicheng, Phoha, Shashi, Madan, Bharat B., Ray, Asok
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Amsterdam Elsevier Inc 01.03.2011; Elsevier
• Subjects: Applied sciences; Computation; Computer networks; Computer science; control theory; systems; Computer simulation; Computer systems and distributed systems. User interface; Data processing. List processing. Character string processing; Density; Distributed sensor networks; Exact sciences and technology; Information systems. Data bases; Memory organisation. Data processing; Mobile wireless network; Multi-modal data fusion; Multicast; Networks; Partitioning; Sensors; Software; Target localization; Target tracking; Mobile wireless network; Target tracking; Target localization; Multi-modal data fusion; Distributed sensor networks; Density measurement; Prognosis; In situ; Distributed system; Level measurement; Interest region; Data integrity; Distributed control; Data fusion; Wireless network; Resource management; Localization; Sensor array; Mobile computing
• ISSN: 0743-7315; 1096-0848
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jpdc.2010.08.016

A sensor network operates on an infrastructure of sensing, computation, and communication, through which it perceives the evolution of events it observes. We propose a fusion-driven distributed dynamic network controller, called MDSTC, for a multi-modal sensor network that incorporates distributed computation for in-situ assessment, prognosis, and optimal reorganization of constrained resources to achieve high quality multi-modal data fusion. For arbitrarily deployed sensors, a certain level of data quality cannot be guaranteed in sparse regions. MDSTC reallocates resources to sparse regions; reallocation of network resources in this manner is motivated by the fact that an increased density of sensor nodes in a region of interest leads to better quality data and enriches the network resilience. Simulation results in NS-2 show the effectiveness of the proposed MDSTC. 1 1 This material is based upon work supported by the US Army Research Laboratory and the US Army Research Office under the eSensIF MURI Award No. W911NF-07-1-0376. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the sponsor. ► A software module called MDSTC that resides at every sensor node in the network and is independent of the sensor type. ► A novel multicast group management protocol that handles multicast groups between same-modality and complementary modality sensors. ► A sensor mobility based protocol for re-allocating resources to sparse regions, regions in which sensors of certain modality are missing. ► Two methods for partitioning a circular region of interest into desired regions (Concentric Circles and Circular Sectors). ► A Greedy algorithm for sensor placement and coverage that selects nodes from the available ones for each of the regions (Algorithm Choose-1-out-of-M). ► NS-2 simulations that validate and verify the effectiveness of the proposed MDSTC.