Energy efficient target tracking algorithm using cooperative sensors

Target tracking is one of the applications of wireless sensor networks (WSNs). It is assumed that each sensor has a limited range for detecting the presence of the object, and the network is sufficiently dense so that the sensors can cover the area of interest. Due to the limited battery resources of sensors, there is a tradeoff between the energy consumption and tracking accuracy. To solve this problem, this paper proposes an energy efficient tracking algorithm. Based on the cooperation of dispatchers, sensors in the area are scheduled to switch their working mode to track the target. Since energy consumed in active mode is higher than that in monitoring or sleeping mode, for each sampling interval, a minimum set of sensors is woken up based on the select mechanism. Meanwhile, other sensors keep in sleeping mode. Performance analysis and simulation results show that the proposed algorithm provides a better performance than other existing approaches.