Ad-hoc wireless sensor network based underwater diffusive source localization

In this paper, we develop a statistical method for estimating the location of a diffusive source using an ad-hoc network of wireless sensors capable of sensing a diffusive field/environment. In particular, we focus on an underwater oil spill scenario along with statistical algorithms for analysis of sensor data leading to efficient estimation of the parameters of interest. We derive a maximum likelihood (ML) based parametric estimation method for localizing the diffusive source. The Cramer-Rao lower bound (CRLB) for the ML estimator performance is also derived as a measure of the theoretical performance bound. The effectiveness of the proposed method is also shown through numerical simulations.