Communication and sensing trade-offs in decentralized mobile sensor networks: a cross-layer design approach

In this paper we characterize the impact of imperfect communication on the performance of a decentralized mobile sensor network. We first examine and demonstrate the trade-offs between communication and sensing objectives, by determining the optimal sensor configurations when introducing imperfect communication. We further illustrate the performance degradation caused by non-ideal communication links in a decentralized mobile sensor network. To address this, we propose a decentralized motion-planning algorithm that considers communication effects. The algorithm is a cross-layer design based on the proper interface of physical and application layers. Simulation results will show the performance improvement attained by utilizing this algorithm.