Measurement Aggregation and Routing Techniques for Energy-Efficient Estimation in Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor networks are fundamentally different from other wireless networks due to energy constraints and spatial correlation among sensor measurements. Mechanisms that efficiently compress and transport sensor data in the network are needed. The authors consider the problem of maximizing lifetime of wireless sensor networks that are entitled with the task of estimating an unknown parameter or process and thus need to adhere to estimation error specifications. They investigate optimal endogenous sensor measurement rate control, in-network data aggregation and routing for achieving the goal above. Sensors take measurements and aggregate incoming data from neighbors in a single outgoing flow by applying appropriate aggregation weights.