On the Probability of Detection Ability in Observing Dynamic Environmental Phenomena using Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

Abstract-Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is being utilised for several purposes in military and civil domains, including surveillance, monitoring, and management, where networked sensors monitor and detect an event of interest and report to the concerned party through the WSN or the Internet infrastructure. Due to the characteristics of WSN, there are many fundamental technical challenges including the node deployment, event localization, and event tracking, among which, the probability of the event observability has a crucial role. The observability is defined as the capability of observing an evolving event in the monitoring area. The probability of detection ability in observing an event depends on the parameters of the detection function, which in turn rely on the sensor technology and the nature of the surrounding environment. This paper addresses the observation of an event using WSN and how accurately the event is observed in the monitoring area. It presents a practical solution for event observability after formulizing and establishing the complexity of observability issue and tackling its relation and impact on node deployment and event localization. Hence, a feasible event observation model has been proposed and validated in this paper. The numerical results of the experimental evaluation have confirmed that an accurate detection of an occurring event can be achieved by the proposed model.