Fusion of Decisions in Multi-hop Wireless Sensor Networks with Three-Level Censoring Scheme

Abstract

AbstractThis paper examines the impact of the three-level censoring scheme on the performance of decision fusion in multi-hop wireless sensor networks (WSNs). In performing the decision fusion process, an optimal fusion rule is derived for the model of the Rayleigh fading channel. However, the optimal fusion rule requires the instantaneous channel state information which may be too costly for resource constrained sensor networks. Hence, considering the approximation of the optimal fusion rule, a sub-optimal alternative with the knowledge of channel statistics is proposed. Simulation results show that the optimal fusion performance can be obtained via adjusting the censoring probability. It implies that with the three-level censoring scheme, the goal of energy saving and performance improvement can be achieved. In addition, the sub-optimal fusion rule exhibits only slight performance degradation compared with the optimal fusion rule which needs much more system resource.Keywordsdecision fusioncensoringmulti-hop transmissionRayleigh fadingwireless sensor networks