Wireless sensor network reliability modelling based on masked data

Abstract

This paper studies the reliability modelling of wireless sensor networks WSNs with the masked data that are often observed in practice. The masked data are the system failure data when exact subsystems or components causing system failures cannot be identified. When the masked data are observed, however, it is difficult to estimate the WSN reliability since the failure processes of the subnets cannot be decomposed into simple subsystem processes. In this paper, an additive non-homogeneous poisson process NHPP model is proposed to describe the failure process of the WSN with subnets. The maximum likelihood estimation MLE procedure is developed to estimate the parameters in the proposed model. By applying the given procedure, the WSN reliability estimate can be relatively easy to obtain. A numerical example based on simulation data with random masking is also provided to illustrate the applicability of the methodology.