Duty cycle scheduling in dynamic sensor networks for controlling event detection probabilities

A sensor network comprising of RF or radar-based sensors has a deteriorating performance in that the effective sensor footprint shrinks as the power level decreases. Power is typically only drawn from the sensor nodes when they are turned on, and as a consequence, the power consumption can be controlled by controlling the duty cycle of the sensors. In this paper, we provide a probabilistic scheduling of the duty cycles in a sensor network deployed in an area of interest based on a Poisson distribution which ensures that a performance measure, e.g., the probability of event detection, is achieved throughout the lifetime of the network. Upper bounds on the performance of the network are given in terms of the decay rates, the spatial distribution intensity, and the desired performance of the network.