Accumulative visual information in wireless video sensor network: definition and analysis

A wireless video sensor network (WVSN) is a system of spatially distributed video sensors which gather and transmit video information over a wireless ad hoc network. To measure, control and optimize the system performance, the following key research problems need to be addressed: 1) how to measure the amount of visual information collected by the video sensor within its operational lifetime; 2) how to quantitatively compare the information sensing efficiency between two video sensors; 3) how to measure the information sensing efficiency of the whole video sensor network; 4) how to control and optimize the information sensing efficiency of the video sensor network. In this work, we introduce the concept of accumulative visual information (AVT), and use it as a measure for the amount of visual information collected the WVSN. Based on the AVI measure and the power-rate-distortion analysis model developed in our previous work, we optimize the efficiency of the WVSN system.