Distance based heuristic for power and rate allocation of video sensor networks

Video sensor networks (VSNs) offer an alternative to several existing surveillance technologies. However, unlike in conventional sensor network, video processing and transmission requires large amount of resources both in signal processing, i.e., encoding, and transmission of the encoded data. For such networks, an optimal encoding power and rate allocation method based on a power-rate-distortion (PRD) analysis has previously been proposed, where the power consumption of video encoding can be controlled by managing some encoding parameters. However, these parameters are currently obtained offline by examining the stored video, an approach which may not be suitable for surveillance applications. In this paper, a distance based heuristic for encoding power and rate allocation of VSNs is proposed. The proposed technique is a practical solution since the video coding parameter is controlled by the node's location in the network. Although the proposed technique offers a sub-optimal solution, in some scenarios it achieves performance up to 94% of the optimal solution in terms of network lifetime.