Energy Balanced Scheduling for Target Tracking with Distance-Dependent Measurement Noise in a WSN

Energy efficient collaborative target tracking in a wireless sensor network (WSN) is considered. It is assumed that the distance estimates of range sensors are contaminated by distance-dependent multiplicative observation noises. The nonlinear measurement model leads to the application of a generalized unscented Kalman filtering (GUKF) tracking algorithm. Energy efficient operation is achieved by imposing an energy balance criterion to select a subset of sensors near the target to participate in collaborative tracking without compromising tracking performance. This is formulated as a multiobjective constrained optimization problem that minimizes both the state covariance of the GUKF algorithm and the variance of on-board residue energy of sensor nodes within the detection range of the target. An efficient, distributed, polynomial time heuristic algorithm that achieves a performance close to the optimal solution is proposed. Extended simulation results indicate that this proposed joint scheduling and tracking algorithm is capable of delivering desired tracking performance while significantly extending the WSN lifespan.