Title
The Sensing Capacity of Sensor Networks
Abstract
This paper demonstrates fundamental limits of sensor networks for detection problems where the number of hypotheses is exponentially large. Such problems characterize many important applications including detection and classification of targets in a geographical area using a network of seismic sensors, and detecting complex substances with a chemical sensor array. We refer to such applications as large-scale detection problems. Using the insight that these problems share fundamental similarities with the problem of communicating over a noisy channel, we define the “sensing capacity” and lower bound it for a number of sensor network models. The sensing capacity expression differs significantly from the channel capacity due to the fact that for a fixed sensor configuration, codewords are dependent and nonidentically distributed. The sensing capacity provides a bound on the minimal number of sensors required to detect the state of an environment to within a desired accuracy. The results differ significantly from classical detection theory, and provide an intriguing connection between sensor networks and communications. In addition, we discuss the insight that sensing capacity provides for the problem of sensor selection.
Year
DOI
Venue
2011
10.1109/TIT.2010.2103733
IEEE Transactions on Information Theory
Keywords
DocType
Volume
chemical sensors,sensor arrays,sensor fusion,wireless sensor networks,chemical sensor array,codewords,geographical area,seismic sensors,sensing capacity,sensor networks,detection theory,sensor selection,information theory,channel capacity,lower bound,sensor network
Journal
57
Issue
ISSN
Citations 
3
0018-9448
4
PageRank 
References 
Authors
0.51
28
3
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Y. Rachlin140.51
Rohit Negi2126397.44
Khosla, P.K.3931123.84