An energy-efficient MAC Protocol for Real-time Target Tracking System Using Wireless Sensor Network

Abstract

Target tracking systems using wireless sensor networks have been used in many application domain such as battlefield surveillance, wildlife monitoring and border security. These applications need to meet certain real-time constraints in response to transient events, such as fast-moving targets or real-time property should be considered as the most important requirement of the tracking system. In this paper, we develop a real-time target tracking system that utilizes the Lateration method (for localization) and the event-driven routing protocol EMRP (for reporting) running over an energy-efficient MAC protocol. The performance of collaborative tracking system in term of energy consumption, tracking delay, and trajectory accuracy is evaluated in extensive computer simulation. The results show that our method achieves better energy consumption while maintaining a reasonable accuracy of tracking performance and achieving real-time requirement.