Worst and best information exposure paths in wireless sensor networks

Abstract

This paper proposes the concept of information exposure for a point and for a path based on estimation theory. The information exposure of a point is defined as the probability that the absolute value of estimation error is less than some threshold; and the information exposure for a path is the average information exposure of all points along the path. The higher the information exposure, the higher the confidence level that some information of a target is exposed and the better the target is monitored. An approximation algorithm is proposed to solve the problem of finding the worst (best) information exposure path in wireless sensor networks, and its performance is evaluated via simulations. Furthermore, a heuristic for adaptive sensor deployment is proposed to increase the information exposure of the worst information exposure path. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2005.