Joint source coding, routing and power allocation in wireless sensor networks

This paper proposes a cross-layer optimization framework for the wireless sensor networks. In a wireless sensor network, each sensor makes a local observation of the underlying physical phenomenon and sends a quantized version of the observation to a central location via wireless links. As the sensor observations are often partial and correlated, the network performance is a complicated and nonseparable function of individual data rates at each sensor. In addition, due to the shared nature of wireless medium, nearby transmissions often interfere with each other. Thus, the traditional "bit-pipe" model for network link capacity no longer holds. This paper deals with the joint optimization of source quantization, routing, and power control in a wireless sensor network. We follow a separate source and channel coding approach and show that the overall network optimization problem can be naturally decomposed into a source coding subproblem at the application layer and a wireless power control subproblem at the physical layer. The interfaces between the layers are precisely the dual optimization variables. In addition, we introduce a novel source coding model at the application layer, which allows the efficient design of practical source quantization schemes at each sensor. Finally, we propose a dual algorithm for the overall network optimization problem. The dual algorithm, when combined with a column-generation method, allows an efficient solution for the overall network optimization problem.