Target localization and tracking in noisy binary sensor networks with known spatial topology

Target localization and tracking are two of the critical tasks of sensor networks in many applications. Conventional localization and tracking techniques developed for wireless systems that rely on direction-of-arrival or time-of-arrival information, are not suitable for low-power sensors with limited computation and communication capabilities. In this paper, we propose a low complexity and energy efficient localization and tracking method for binary sensor networks in noisy environments, where the sensors can only perform binary detection, and the physical links are characterized by additive white Gaussian noise channels. The proposed method is based on known spatial topology. An efficient wake-up strategy is used to activate a particular group of sensors for cooperative localization and tracking. We analyze the localization error probability and tracking miss probability in the presence of prediction errors. Simulation results validate the theoretic analysis and demonstrate the effectiveness of the localization and tracking mechanism.