Collaborative multihop transmission of distributed sensor imagery

We consider a network of imaging sensors. We address the problem of energy-efficient communication of the measurements of the sensors. A novel algorithm is presented for the purpose of exploiting intersensor and intrasensor correlation, which is inherent in a network of imaging sensors. The collaborative algorithm is used in conjunction with a cooperative multihop routing strategy to maximize the lifetime of the network. The algorithm is demonstrated to achieve an average gain in the lifetime as high as 3.2 over previous methods. (c) 2006 Optical Society of America.