Sequential distributed detection via level-triggered sampling in underwater wireless sensor networks

Abstract

In implementations of distributed detection based on underwater wireless sensor networks (UWSN), a few technique challenges are faced. Among them is the strict limited communication ability of local sensors due to constrained bandwidth as well as energy, and the severe synchronization error among sensors which makes data fusion in the fusion center (FC) difficult. To solve the above problems to some extent, a sequential distributed detection (SDD) scheme based on level-triggered sampling (LTS) mechanism is proposed. In the LTS-SDD scheme, sequential test method is applied in both sensors and the FC, then the distributed detection system works with asynchronous sampling among sensors and low-speed communication between sensors and the FC. Though potential, the proposed scheme faced some unaddressed challenges when used in practical underwater distributed detection system, which are also discussed in the paper. To validate the suggested scheme, distributed detection of weak single frequency signal via UWSN is studied under some assumptions. Corresponding simulation results show that the LTS-SDD scheme works well and its error performance as well as average decision delay performance is superior to sequential detection (SD) scheme with single sensor.