How to distribute sensors in a random field?

Author

Zhang, Xin ; Wicker, Stephen B.

Author_Institution

Sch. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., Cornell Univ., Ithaca, NY, USA

fYear

2004

fDate

26-27 April 2004

Firstpage

243

Lastpage

250

Abstract

We study the optimal way of distributing sensors in a random field to minimize the estimation distortion. We show that this problem is equivalent to certain problems in optimal sampling design and multiterminal source coding. In our model, we partition the field into cells within which the observations are assumed to be the same. A number of identical sensors that can report the observed data to the fusion center at communication rate ΔR are to be allocated to cells so that the distortion achieved at the fusion center is minimized. We find optimal solutions for the Gaussian, binary and simplified Gaussian vector cases.

Keywords

distributed sensors; minimisation; sensor fusion; Gaussian vector cases; binary vector cases; communication rate; contra-polymatroid; estimation distortion; fusion center; multiterminal source coding; optimal sampling design; random field; rate allocation; sensors distribution; water-filling; Digital signal processing; Distributed computing; Information theory; Micromechanical devices; Monitoring; Permission; Sampling methods; Sensor fusion; Signal processing; Source coding;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Information Processing in Sensor Networks, 2004. IPSN 2004. Third International Symposium on

Print_ISBN

1-58113-846-6

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/IPSN.2004.1307344

Filename

1307344