Routing Path Selection and Power Allocation for Distributed Detection in Wireless Sensor Networks

The design of wireless sensor networks for signal processing applications has to consider the limited battery power of the sensor nodes. In this paper, a combined routing path selection and power allocation strategy is presented that is especially designed for distributed detection in sensor networks with a serial topology. The objective is to minimize the global probability of detection error of the serial network under a total network power constraint. The cross-layer approach for the selection of a routing path through the network is based on the local observation SNR of the sensors as well as fading conditions and is efficiently implemented by a backward greedy algorithm. After the routing path is established, a subsequently performed power allocation algorithm aims to optimally distribute a total power budget with respect to the detection performance of the sensor network.