Design of wireless sensor networks for mobile target detection

We consider surveillance applications through wireless sensor networks (WSNs) where the areas to be monitored are fully accessible and the WSN topology can be planned a priori to maximize application efficiency. We propose an optimization framework for selecting the positions of wireless sensors to detect mobile targets traversing a given area. By leveraging the concept of path exposure as a measure of detection quality, we propose two problem versions: the minimization of the sensors installation cost while guaranteeing a minimum exposure, and the maximization of the exposure of the least-exposed path subject to a budget on the sensors installation cost. We present compact mixed-integer linear programming formulations for these problems that can be solved to optimality for reasonable-sized network instances. Moreover, we develop Tabu Search heuristics that are able to provide near-optimal solutions of the same instances in short computing time and also tackle large size instances. The basic versions are extended to account for constraints on the wireless connectivity as well as heterogeneous devices and nonuniform sensing. Finally, we analyze an enhanced exposure definition based on mobile target detection probability.