Energy cost for estimation in multihop wireless sensor networks

This paper addresses a transmission energy problem for estimation in multihop wireless sensor networks. We consider two very different schemes of estimation: progressive estimation and consensus estimation. Progressive estimation is designed for networks about which a central planner knows a routing tree and all channel state information. Consensus estimation is commonly known for more dynamic networks. In this paper, we develop energy planning algorithms to minimize the transmission energy cost for both schemes, and compare their energy costs. This study shows that the total energy cost for consensus estimation can be much higher than that for progressive estimation, but the peak energy for the former is less than that for the latter.