The Precision and Energetic Cost of Snapshot Estimates in Wireless Sensor Networks

— Even for a specific application, the design space of wireless sensor networks is enormous, and traditional disciplinary boundaries are disappearing in the search for efficient integrated network architectures and protocols. There is a strong need to develop objective frameworks for the evaluation of performance and energetic cost as a function of network control at multiple levels, including the signal/data processing application, network organization, routing, MAC, and physical layers. This paper, a step in this direction, addresses the efficiency of linear estimation of a second-order random spatial field at a central server— a snapshot—in terms of the precision of the estimate and the energetic cost of computing it. We present a model that is based on the tasks of taking samples at a specific resolution and reporting them over the network to the server where the estimate is computed. It provides insight into the joint design of sampling and routing, an explicit efficie...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2006
• Where: ISCC
• Authors: Paul G. Flikkema
• Keywords: Communications, Efficient Integrated Network, Energetic Cost, ISCC 2006, Random Spatial field