An optimal power allocation algorithm in Distributed Sensor networks

We consider optimal power allocation algorithm for Distributed Sensing networks under the assumption of a group of sensors observe the same quantity in independent additive observation noises with possibly different variances. Each node computes a local statistic and communicates it to the fusion center over rayleigh fading wireless channels. At the fusion, the linear minimum mean square error(LMMSE) is used. Sensor networks in which energy is a limited resource so that we propose an optimal power allocation algorithm, In this paper, for a given power constraints, two types of power allocation methods are considered: 1) equal power transmission strategy, and 2) the optimal power allocation strategy. Finally, we demonstrate the applicability of our results through numerical examples. Compared the two cases, result shows that the optimal distributed estimation algorithm for homogeneous sensor networks achieved the power gain by turning off sensors with bad channels and bad observation quality.