Large scale heterogeneous monitoring system with decentralized sensor fusion

Abstract

Monitoring large areas, critical infrastructure systems and surveillance operations require the design of advanced embedded systems which cooperate for achieving mission objectives within a decision support framework. As fundamental building blocks of this new paradigm, we focus on the integration at the communication and data processing levels of wireless sensor networks with unmanned aerial vehicles. WSNs are seen as collections of embedded computing and communication devices which are able to measure and report continuous and discrete values to a central server and allow dynamic interactions through dedicated middleware. At the same time, UAVs are a vital resource for rich fieldlevel information such as picture and video stream capture along with great flexibility for deployment and operation. The paper discusses the general architecture of a large scale heterogeneous monitoring system and the application of decentralized sensor fusion mechanisms for efficient information extraction and data reduction. This promises significat impact on reducing the energy and communication constraints of the embedded sensing nodes. Experimental results are provided stemming from real-world deployment of the UAV platform and ground sensor network subsystems.

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“…The communication capability of each sensor node is 50 m. The target is maneuvering with dynamic multiple models F j k , j ∈ {1, 2} given as follows. [18,30), [34,49), [53,71), [75, 90)}; j = 2, k ∈ { [14,18), [30,34), [49,53), [71, 75)}. (48) where the turn rates are…”

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