Communication and Sensing Trade-Offs in Decentralized Mobile Sensor Networks: A Cross-Layer Design Approach

Yasamin Mostofi, Timothy H. Chung, Richard M. Murray, Joel W. Burdick
2005 International Conference on Information Processing in Sensor Networks (IPSN)

In this paper we characterize the impact of imperfect communication on the performance of a decentralized mobile sensor network. We first examine and demonstrate the trade-offs between communication and sensing objectives, by determining the optimal sensor configurations when introducing imperfect communication. We further illustrate the performance degradation caused by non-ideal communication links in a decentralized mobile sensor network. To address this, we propose a decentralized motion-planning algorithm that considers communication effects. The algorithm is a cross-layer design based on the proper interface of physical and application layers. Simulation results will show the performance improvement attained by utilizing this algorithm.

• Conference Paper: http://www.cds.caltech.edu/~murray/preprints/
• Project(s): Template:HTDB funding::NSF ITR, Template:HTDB funding::NSF SENSOR