No Arabic abstract
We study the problem of tracking an object moving through a network of wireless sensors. In order to conserve energy, the sensors may be put into a sleep mode with a timer that determines their sleep duration. It is assumed that an asleep sensor cannot be communicated with or woken up, and hence the sleep duration needs to be determined at the time the sensor goes to sleep based on all the information available to the sensor. Having sleeping sensors in the network could result in degraded tracking performance, therefore, there is a tradeoff between energy usage and tracking performance. We design sleeping policies that attempt to optimize this tradeoff and characterize their performance. As an extension to our previous work in this area [1], we consider generalized models for object movement, object sensing, and tracking cost. For discrete state spaces and continuous Gaussian observations, we derive a lower bound on the optimal energy-tracking tradeoff. It is shown that in the low tracking error regime, the generated policies approach the derived lower bound.
Wireless sensor/actuator networks (WSANs) are emerging rapidly as a new generation of sensor networks. Despite intensive research in wireless sensor networks (WSNs), limited work has been found in the open literature in the field of WSANs. In particular, quality-of-service (QoS) management in WSANs remains an important issue yet to be investigated. As an attempt in this direction, this paper develops a fuzzy logic control based QoS management (FLC-QM) scheme for WSANs with constrained resources and in dynamic and unpredictable environments. Taking advantage of the feedback control technology, this scheme deals with the impact of unpredictable changes in traffic load on the QoS of WSANs. It utilizes a fuzzy logic controller inside each source sensor node to adapt sampling period to the deadline miss ratio associated with data transmission from the sensor to the actuator. The deadline miss ratio is maintained at a pre-determined desired level so that the required QoS can be achieved. The FLC-QM has the advantages of generality, scalability, and simplicity. Simulation results show that the FLC-QM can provide WSANs with QoS support.
In this paper we study the problem of tracking an object moving randomly through a network of wireless sensors. Our objective is to devise strategies for scheduling the sensors to optimize the tradeoff between tracking performance and energy consumption. We cast the scheduling problem as a Partially Observable Markov Decision Process (POMDP), where the control actions correspond to the set of sensors to activate at each time step. Using a bottom-up approach, we consider different sensing, motion and cost models with increasing levels of difficulty. At the first level, the sensing regions of the different sensors do not overlap and the target is only observed within the sensing range of an active sensor. Then, we consider sensors with overlapping sensing range such that the tracking error, and hence the actions of the different sensors, are tightly coupled. Finally, we consider scenarios wherein the target locations and sensors observations assume values on continuous spaces. Exact solutions are generally intractable even for the simplest models due to the dimensionality of the information and action spaces. Hence, we devise approximate solution techniques, and in some cases derive lower bounds on the optimal tradeoff curves. The generated scheduling policies, albeit suboptimal, often provide close-to-optimal energy-tracking tradeoffs.
Extreme events and disasters resulting from climate change or other ecological factors are difficult to predict and manage. Current limitations of state-of-the-art approaches to disaster prediction and management could be addressed by adopting new unorthodox risk assessment and management strategies. The next generation Internet of Things (IoT), Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), 5G wireless communication, and big data analytics technologies are the key enablers for future effective disaster management infrastructures. In this chapter, we commissioned a survey on emerging wireless communication technologies with potential for enhancing disaster prediction, monitoring, and management systems. Challenges, opportunities, and future research trends are highlighted to provide some insight on the potential future work for researchers in this field.
Congestion control and avoidance in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) is a subject that has attracted a lot of research attention in the last decade. Besides rate and resource control, the utilization of mobile nodes has also been suggested as a way to control congestion. In this work, we present a Mobile Congestion Control (MobileCC) algorithm with two variations, to assist existing congestion control algorithms in facing congestion in WSNs. The first variation employs mobile nodes that create locally-significant alternative paths leading to the sink. The second variation employs mobile nodes that create completely individual (disjoint) paths to the sink. Simulation results show that both variations can significantly contribute to the alleviation of congestion in WSNs.
We investigate the condition on transmission radius needed to achieve connectivity in duty-cycled wireless sensor networks (briefly, DC-WSN). First, we settle a conjecture of Das et. al. (2012) and prove that the connectivity condition on Random Geometric Graphs (RGG), given by Gupta and Kumar (1989), can be used to derive a weak sufficient condition to achieve connectivity in DC-WSN. To find a stronger result, we define a new vertex-based random connection model which is of independent interest. Following a proof technique of Penrose (1991) we prove that when the density of the nodes approaches infinity then a finite component of size greater than 1 exists with probability 0 in this model. We use this result to obtain an optimal condition on node transmission radius which is both necessary and sufficient to achieve connectivity and is hence optimal. The optimality of such a radius is also tested via simulation for two specific duty-cycle schemes, called the contiguous and the random selection duty-cycle scheme. Finally, we design a minimum-radius duty-cycling scheme that achieves connectivity with a transmission radius arbitrarily close to the one required in Random Geometric Graphs. The overhead in this case is that we have to spend some time computing the schedule.