Energy-Efficient Tracking Strategy for Wireless Sensor Networks

In this paper the problem of tracking cooperative mobile nodes in wireless sensor networks is addressed. Aiming at an efficient resource solution, the research adopts a strategy of combining target tracking with node selection procedures in order to select informative sensors to minimize the energy consumption of the tracking task. We devise a cluster-based architecture to address the limitations in computational, battery power and communications of the sensor devices. To track mobile nodes two kinds of particle filters, bootstrap and unscented particle filter, are considered to estimate the actual position and predict future locations. The particle filters have been already used in tracking algorithms, but their energy efficiency has received less attention. To save energy, a node selection procedure is proposed. The node selection problem is formulated as a cross-layer optimization problem and it is solved using greedy algorithms.