Adaptive UWB Pulse Allocation for Distributed Detection in Sensor Networks

This study presents several schemes for adaptively allocating the number of ultra wideband (UWB) pulses used by each node within a wireless sensor network (WSN) in such a way as to enhance the detection performance while simultaneously satisfying a constraint imposed on the maximum number of pulses consumed. The study focuses on WSNs in which the data communications take place over multipath fading channels. Significantly, the proposed schemes take account of both the local detection performance of the individual nodes and the quality of the communication links between the nodes and the fusion center. Solutions are obtained for both high signal-to-noise ratio communication channels and low signal-to-noise ratio communication channels. A modulation scheme is proposed in which each node is assigned a random number of UWB pulses in accordance with the non-integer number of pulses obtained from the theoretical solutions. It is shown that the detection performance obtained when using the random UWB pulse modulation scheme is virtually identical to that achieved when using the theoretical solutions.