On Trajectory Design for Intruder Detection in Wireless Mobile Sensor Networks

We address the problem of detecting the invasion of an intruder into a region of interest (ROI) which is monitored by a distributed bandwidth-constrained wireless mobile sensor network (WMSN). We design periodic trajectories for the mobile sensor nodes (MSNs) such that high detection probabilities are obtained while maintaining the MSNs' energy consumption low. To reduce the transmission and processing burden on the MSNs, we propose an operation algorithm based on two modes, surveying mode and confirmation mode. In the former, to efficiently detect the intruder while using little mechanical energy, we optimize the surveying path such that the sensed area is maximized. During this mode, each MSN performs local detection and switches to the confirmation mode if and only if the intruder is suspected to be present. In the confirmation mode, each MSN collects further measurements over a predefined duration to reduce the detection uncertainly. A binary local hypothesis testing is performed at each MSN and only positive test statistics are transmitted to the FC where the ultimate decision is taken. Simulations results show the merits of the proposed two-mode operation algorithm in terms of detection performance and energy efficiency.