Distributed sensor network for real time tracking

TLDR

The hardware consists of reconfigurable sensors at fixed locations with local processing and low‑bandwidth communication to other nodes. The study aims to provide a real‑time distributed resource‑allocation solution for tracking moving objects under uncertainty and constraints on sensor load, communication, power, action characteristics, and clock synchronization. The approach decomposes the environment into sectors, dynamically specializes sensor nodes within each sector, and coordinates communication to collect triangulation data within a limited time window. The paper reports results and discusses future directions.

Abstract

In this paper we describe our solution to a real-time distributed resource allocation application involving distributed situation assessment. The hardware configuration consists of a set of reconfigurable sensors at fixed locations, each having local processing and low-bandwidth communication capabilities with other sensor nodes. The objective is to track objects moving in the environment in real-time as best as possible, given uncertainty and constraints on sensor loads, communication, power consumption, action characteristics, and clock synchronization. Once the target is detected, the sensors must communicate and cooperate so that, within a given window of time, the data needed to triangulate the position of the target can be collected. Our solution to this problem decomposes the environment into a number of sectors, where individual sensor nodes in a sector are specialize dynamically to address different parts of the goal. We describe our solution to this problem in detail, including the high-level architecture and a number of the more interesting implementation challenges. Results and future direction are also covered.