Optimum sampling in spatial-temporally correlated wireless sensor networks

Abstract

The optimum sampling in the one- and two-dimensional (1-D and 2-D) wireless sensor networks (WSNs) with spatial-temporally correlated data is studied in this article. The impacts of the node density in the space domain, the sampling rate in the time domain, and the space-time data correlation on the network performance are investigated asymptotically by considering a large network with infinite area but finite node density and finite temporal sampling rate, under the constraint of fixed power per unit area. The impact of space-time sampling on network performances is investigated in two cases. The first case studies the estimations of the space-time samples collected by the sensors, and the samples are discrete in both the space and time domains. The second case estimates an arbitrary data point on the space-time hyperplane by interpolating the discrete samples collected by the sensors. Optimum space-time sampling is obtained by minimizing the mean square error distortion at the network fusion center. The interactions among the various network parameters, such as spatial node density, temporal sampling rate, measurement noise, channel fading, and their impacts on the system performance are quantitatively identified with analytical and numerical studies. © 2013 Sun and Wu; licensee Springer.