A Method for Selecting Optimal Number of Sensors to Improve the Credibility

With the development of sensors, it is possible to embed many sensors within a certain space, which makes the monitor and alarm system with multisensor possible. There are two important parameters in a monitor and alarm system, namely, the false alarm rate and the missed alarm rate. In this work, a method for selecting optimal number of sensors in the sensor array is presented to improve the credibility. The influence factors of the weights and the false alarm rate and the missed alarm rate of one sensor and total number of sensors are discussed. An experimental setup was developed. The monitoring methods of common strategies and the proposed optimal number of sensors strategy are compared graphically by the receiver operating characteristic curves and the area under receiver operating characteristic curve values. The receiver operating characteristic curves graphically prove that the optimal number of sensors' method presents the best performance, and it is shown that the optimal number of sensors' method has the highest area under receiver operating characteristic value (0.9631). This method may aid future users of the monitor and alarm system by providing an optimal number of sensors strategy for high credibility.