Published in IET Wireless Sensor Systems

Received on 3rd September 2010

Revised on 23rd December 2010
doi: 10.1049/iet-wss.2010.0059
ISSN 2043-6386
Adaptive sampling for energy-efcient collaborative
multi-target tracking in wireless sensor networks
Y.E.M. Hamouda C. Phillips
Electronic Engineering, Queen Mary University of London, London, UK
E-mail: yousef.hamouda@elec.qmul.ac.uk
Abstract: The problem of energy-efcient multi-target tracking (MTT) in wireless sensor networks is considered for sensor nodes
with limited energy resources and sharp manoeuvring targets of different classes. A distributed multi-sensor multi-target tracking
scheme is proposed for energy-efcient MTT with adaptive sampling. Behavioural data obtained while tracking the target
including the targets previous locations are recorded as metadata to compute the sampling interval so that the tracking
continuity and energy efciency are improved. Following this, the next tasking sensors group is selected proactively
according to the predicted target location probability distribution. A main node is elected from the selected tasking sensors
so that the energy efciency is improved. Sensor nodes that detect more than one target at the same time determine their
preferred target according to the target importance and the distance to the target. Simulation results show that compared to
other well-known target tracking schemes, the proposed scheme can provide a signicant improvement in energy efciency
while maintaining acceptable accuracy and seamless tracking, even with sharp manoeuvring targets. Additionally, more
important targets experience better tracking accuracy.
1 Introduction
Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) provide useful information
about the physical world by interpreting the physical events.
WSNs typically employ low-cost, densely organised, tiny
electronic nodes connected to each other via wireless
communication. Each node is equipped with embedded
processors, sensor devices, storage and radio transceivers.
WSNs have attractive commercial application in areas such
as healthcare, target tracking, monitoring, smart homes,
surveillance and intrusion detection [1].
Multi-target tracking (MTT) is a process of estimating the
trajectories and velocities of mobile targets. Collaborative
target tracking uses a multi-sensor scheme to improve the
tracking accuracy compared with single-sensor tracking.
Physical limitations of sensor nodes in terms of battery-
supplied energy, processing capability, communication
bandwidth and storage [2, 3] have driven the desire for
sensor and sampling interval selections to improve the
energy efciency. Fig. 1 shows an MTT scenario in WSN.
Two targets are assumed to be tracked. At a particular time
the target locations are shown in Fig. 1. Each target is
cooperatively tracked and served using a group of nodes. R
s
is the sensing range of the sensors. The problem of conict
nodes selection in MTT is shown in Fig. 1. All nodes in the
conict area can track and serve both Target 1 and Target
2. The noise of the sensor measurement is less when the
sensor is closer to the target. Therefore the tracking
accuracy is better for the targets with closer sensor nodes.
We assume that each node can track and serve only one
target at a time [4, 5]. Therefore each conict node has to
locally decide its preferred target that it will track. In this
paper, the target class, which is the importance or priority
of the target, is considered. The target inuence strength
(G) is dened to be inversely proportional with distance (D)
from the sensor node and higher for targets of higher
importance. Since the target importance is assumed to be
dimensionless, the unit of G is m
21
. The targets inuence
strength (G) against the distance from the sensor node are
plotted in Fig. 1. Target 1 has a higher priority than Target
2. Thus, the targets inuence strength of Target 1 is higher
than the case of Target 2. In this paper, a selection
algorithm is proposed to allow conict nodes to select the
preferred target based on the targets inuence strength.
The paper is organised into seven sections. After this
introduction, Section 2 browses the related work. After that
Section 3 reviews the target dynamics, measurement,
extended Kalman lter (EKF) and energy consumption.
Section 4 then introduces the proposed distributed multi-
sensor multi-target tracking (DMMT) framework. DMMT is
presented in detail in Section 5. Section 6 describes a
simulation-based evaluation and, nally, Section 7
summarises the paper.
2 Related work
Most existing research into WSN target tracking adopts a
uniform sampling interval, which is the time between two
successive tracking events. In [6], the nearest three nodes are
selected to track the target. However, sensor selection taking
into account the uncertainty over the target location provides
better tracking accuracy than selection of the nearest nodes
IET Wirel. Sens. Syst., 2011, Vol. 1, Iss. 1, pp. 1525 15
doi: 10.1049/iet-wss.2010.0059 & The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2011
www.ietdl.org
[7]. Therefore the proposed selection algorithm chooses the
next tasking sensors to track the target based on the
uncertainty over the predicted target location. In [8], an
entropy-based sensor selection approach is used to select the
next sensor such that its measurement leads to the greatest
reduction of the target location distribution. Nevertheless,
this approach is practically difcult and costly in terms of
energy because all sensors within the range of the target will
perform measurements from which the useful ones are then
selected. This is wasteful. Unlike [8], the selection algorithm
proposed in this paper proactively selects the next tasking
sensors based on information associated with the predicted
target location and without the need of the actual
measurements of sensors. In [9], the next node to track the
target is selected based on maximising the measured
information utility and minimising the communication cost.
However, the tracking algorithms used in [8, 9] select only
one tasking sensor at each time step. Unlike [8, 9], the
proposed tracking system in this paper uses a multi-sensor
tracking scheme to improve the tracking accuracy. All the
researches described above adopt a uniform or xed
sampling interval. However, if the sampling interval is set
too large the tracking accuracy is degraded and the target
may be unmonitored for long periods. Moreover, the target
may be lost if its motion includes abrupt random changes.
On the other hand, decreasing the sampling interval leads to
increased energy consumption because the tracking events
will be increased. Therefore unlike the above researches the
proposed tracking algorithm in this paper adaptively
calculates the sampling interval.
In [10], a simple prediction model is used to predict the
location of a moving object. In [10], the sampling interval is
changed based on the average historical target speed.
However, changes in the target direction are not considered in
the sampling interval calculation. Additionally, the sampling
interval for each averaged speed is calculated ofine. Unlike
[10], the proposed adaptive sampling interval scheme
considers the changes in the target direction and calculates the
sampling interval online at each tracking snapshot.
In [11, 12], adaptive sampling interval target tracking
schemes are proposed. However, they do not consider
randomness in the motion of a target, that is, undergoing
sharp bends in its path. In the tracking scheme proposed by
Xiao et al. in [12], the sampling interval is computed so that
the updated tracking accuracy is satised. A discrete search
of the best sampling interval is adopted. One tasking sensor
at each time step is selected. However, choosing the tracking
accuracy threshold dramatically affects the total energy
consumption and it is not easy to determine as it depends on
the amount of motion randomness. Additionally, Xiaos
scheme assumes the nodes that can detect the target at each
time step are known a priori without including a method or
technique to identify them. A predicted state distribution is
used to forecast the nodes that may detect the target at the
each time step. In Lin et als. approach [11], the sampling
interval is calculated based on the predicted tracking
accuracy. This scheme can guarantee the predicted accuracy
to be less than or equal the predened threshold. However, it
is difcult to decide the value of the threshold because the
target can sometimes unexpectedly make abrupt motion
changes. Unlike [11, 12], the proposed tracking scheme
considers abrupt random changes in the target movement
and does not require any predened threshold to adaptively
calculate the sampling interval. Moreover, the proposed
scheme provides node selection algorithm to proactively
select the tasking sensors to track the target.
All research has hitherto only considered tracking single
targets. Most of the research into MTT focuses on the data
association problem [1316]. Sensor selection in MTT
receives less attention [17]. In [17, 18], sensor selection
algorithm for MTT is developed to nd a near-optimal
sensor subset to track the targets. The objective function is to
maximise the tracking accuracies of the targets. However,
the targets are assumed to move in a predictable fashion. The
optimisation problem in [17] uses all sensor nodes to nd a
near-optimal sensor subset to track the targets. This is
computationally expensive. Moreover, the paper does not
provide a mechanism to predict the sensor nodes that may
detect the target at each time step. The sampling interval
used in the above MTT researches is xed. Additionally, the
concept of conict nodes is not considered whereby each
node is capable of detecting more than one target at a time.
In our paper, a DMMT scheme is developed for MTT in
WSNs. The scheme operates in four steps.
Step 1: is to compute the sampling interval based on location
metadata pertaining to the targets past positions, by which
the movement pattern is computed.
Step 2: selects the next group of sensors to track the target
based on information associated with the predicted target
location.
Step 3: elects one sensor to act as the main node and select
others to be helper nodes (HNs) and, nally,
Step 4: decides to which target conict nodes will be assigned
and track.
This is according to the target priority and the distance from
the node(s). The main node (MN) is responsible for reforming
its tracking node group if it is necessary for any group member
to handover its responsibilities. This can arise if there is a
change in its internal state or if it is required to track another
target. DMMT aims to improve the tracking continuity,
energy efciency and prediction success. We note that this
paper introduces the rst formulation of conict node
resolution in MTT using the concept of target classes.
3 EKF and target dynamics, measurement
and energy models
In this paper, the transpose of matrix A [A
rc
] will be denoted
by A

[A
rc
] where A
rc
is the element at row r and column c.
Fig. 1 Conict nodes in MTT
16 IET Wirel. Sens. Syst., 2011, Vol. 1, Iss. 1, pp. 1525
& The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2011 doi: 10.1049/iet-wss.2010.0059
www.ietdl.org
The symbols i, j and k refer to the sensor node identication,
target identication and tracking time step (i.e. snapshot),
respectively. The circle equation, and Euclidean and
Mahalanobis distances are expressed in matrix form.
Estimation of the trajectories and velocities of a mobile
target T
j
is performed at discrete times (i.e. snapshots), t
T
j
(k).
The sampling interval (Dt
T
j
(k)) of the target T
j
at time t
T
j
(k)
is the time between the two successive tracking snapshots
[i.e. Dt
T
j
(k) = t
T
j
(k +1) t
T
j
(k)]. The true target T
j
state vector at time t
T
j
(k) consists of the target position
and velocity in xy plane and is written as
X
T
j
(k) = [
x
T
j
(k) x
T
j
(k) y
T
j
(k) y
T
j
(k)
]

. The true target

location vector at time t
T
j
(k) and the sensor node s
i
location
vector can be expressed as L
T
j
(k) = [
x
T
j
(k) y
T
j
(k)
]

and
L
s
i
= [ x
s
i
y
s
i
]

, respectively.
3.1 Target dynamic model
In this paper, the target T
j
dynamics are modelled using the
discrete-time white noise acceleration model [1921] which
is described by
X
T
j
(k +1) = A
T
j
(k)X
T
j
(k) +w
T
j
(k) (1)
where
A
T
j
(k) =
V
T
j
(k) Z
Z V
T
j
(k)

, V
T
j
(k) =
1 Dt
T
j
(k)
0 1

Z =
0 0
0 0

and w
T
j
(k) is the process noise which models the target
velocity variations and is assumed to possess a zero-mean
white Gaussian distribution with Q
T
j
(k) covariance matrix
Q
T
j
(k) = q
T
j
L
T
j
(k) Z
Z L
T
j
(k)

(2)
where L
T
j
(k) =
Dt
3
T
j
(k)/3 Dt
2
T
j
(k)/2
Dt
2
T
j
(k)/2 Dt
T
j
(k)

and q
T
j
is scalar
that represents the amount of randomness in the process noise.
3.2 Sensor measurement model
We assume that the sensors have the capability to measure the
target range, such as using an acoustic signal emitted from the
target. The target T
j
is assumed to be an isotropic sound
source where its acoustic power intensity received by sensor
node s
i
at time t
T
j
(k +1) can be calculated according to the
following detection model [22]
P
s
i
[k +1, T
j
] =
S
T
j
(k +1)
R
n
s
i
[k +1, T
j
]
(3)
where S
T
j
(k +1) is the emitted acoustic density fromthe sound
source (i.e. the target T
j
) which is assumed to be known,
R
n
s
i
[k +1, T
j
] is the noisy geometric distance between the
sensor s
i
and the target T
j
and n is the attenuation decay
factor which is typically between 2 and 5 according to the
environment and atmospheric conditions [22]. Therefore by
measuring P
s
i
[k +1, T
j
], R
n
s
i
[k +1, T
j
], can be calculated
using (3). Using a group S
g(T
j
)
= {s
1
, s
2
, . . . , s
n
g
} of n
g
tasking sensors to track the target T
j
, the measurement model
that relates the noisy target measurements with the target true
state at time t
T
j
(k +1) is given by
z
T
j
(k +1) = h
T
j
[k +1, X
T
j
(k +1)] +v
T
j
(k +1) (4)
where v
T
j
(k +1) is the measurement noise which is assumed a
zero-mean white Gaussian distribution with R
T
j
(k +1)
covariance matrix, and the target noisy measurement vector
z
T
j
(k +1) and measurement function h
T
j
[k +1, X
T
j
(k +1)]
are given by
z
T
j
(k +1)
=
R
s
1
[k +1, T
j
] R
s
2
[k +1, T
j
] . . . R
s
n
g
[k +1, T
j
]

(5)
h
T
j
[k +1, X
T
j
(k +1)]
=
........................................
[L
T
j
(k +1) L
s
1
]

[L
T
j
(k +1) L
s
1
]

.........................................
[L
T
j
(k +1) L
s
2
]

[[L
T
j
(k +1) L
s
2
]

.
.
.
.........................................
[L
T
j
(k +1) L
s
n
g
]

[L
T
j
(k +1) L
s
n
g
]

(6)
The sensors measurement noise variances are assumed to be
independent. Thus, the measurement noise covariance matrix
is dened as R
T
j
(k +1) = diag[s
2
T
j
(s
1
), s
2
T
j
(s
2
), . . . , s
2
T
j
(s
n
g
)]
where diag is denoted to diagonal matrix and s
2
T
j
(s
i
) is the
noise variance using sensor s
i
for target T
j
. The process and
measurement noises are independent of time. They are also
independent with respect to each other.
3.3 Extended Kalman lter
The proposed measurement model shown in Section 3.2 is
non-linear. Therefore The EKF [1921] is used to estimate
the target states. EKF is a mathematical model that can
use the noisy measurements to estimate values that are close
to the true values. EKF is based on the linearisation of the
non-linearities in the dynamic and/or the measurement
models. It considers the conditional mean and covariance.
The process and measurement noises are assumed to be
adaptive, zero-mean and white noises. At each time t
T
j
(k),
the EKF calculates the predict target state vector

X
T
j
(k +1|k) at time t
T
j
(k +1) and its associated predicted
covariance matrix P
T
j
(k +1|k). At each time step t
T
j
(k +1),
EKF calculates the updated target state vector

X
T
j
(k +1|k +1) with its associated updated covariance
matrix P
T
j
(k +1|k +1). The predicted state is given by

X
T
j
(k +1|k) = A
T
j
(k)

X
T
j
(k|k) (7)
with associated predicted covariance matrix
P
T
j
(k +1|k) = A
T
j
(k)P
T
j
(k|k)A

T
j
(k) +Q
T
j
(k) (8)
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The predicted measurement is calculated as follows
z
T
j
(k +1|k) = h
T
j
[k +1,

X
T
j
(k +1|k)] (9)
The Jacobian matrix of h
T
j
at X
T
j
(k +1) =

X
T
j
(k +1|k) is
H
T
j
(k +1) =
h
T
j
[k +1, X
T
j
(k +1)]
X
T
j
(k +1)
,
at X
T
j
(k +1) =

X
T
j
(k +1|k)
= [H
ij
], 1 i n
g
, 1 j 4 (10)
where
H
ij
=
x
T
j
(k +1|k) x
s
i
...........................................
[

L
T
j
(k +1|k) L
s
i
]

L
T
j
(k +1|k) L
s
i
]
j = 1
0 j = 2
y
T
j
(k +1|k) y
s
i
...........................................
[

L
T
j
(k +1|k) L
s
i
]

L
T
j
(k +1|k) L
s
i
]
j = 3
0 j = 4

(11)
and

L
T
j
(k +1|k) = [
x
T
j
(k +1|k) y
T
j
(k +1|k)
]

is the
predicted target location vector. In the update stage, where
the measurements at time t
T
j
(k +1) are available, the
measurement residual, which is the difference between the
actual and predicted measurements, is calculated as follows
r
T
j
(k +1) = z
T
j
(k +1) z
T
j
(k +1|k) (12)
with associated residual or innovation covariance matrix
S
T
j
(k +1) = R
T
j
(k +1) +H
T
j
(k +1)
P
T
j
(k +1|k)H

T
j
(k +1) (13)
The update state estimate is given by

X
T
j
(k +1|k +1) =

X
T
j
(k +1|k) +K
T
j
(k +1)r
T
j
(k +1)
(14)
with associated updated covariance matrix
P
T
j
(k +1|k +1) = P
T
j
(k +1|k) K
T
j
(k +1)
S
T
j
(k +1)K

T
j
(k +1) (15)
where the lter gain is dened as
K
T
j
(k +1) = P
T
j
(k +1|k)H

T
j
(k +1)S
1
T
j
(k +1) (16)
For more background, in [19] a detailed derivation of the EKF
mathematical equations is given.
3.4 Energy model
Energy is consumed during sensing, communication and
processing. E
t
(l, d) = E
elec
l +1
amp
l d
2
is the energy
consumption [23] required to transmit an l-bit message over a
wireless distance d where E
elec
is the electronic energy and
1
amp
is the amplier energy. The energy consumption to
receive l-bit message is E
r
(l, d) E
elec
l. The energy
consumption to execute N clock cycles is E
c
(V
dd
, f ) =
NCV
2
dd
+V
dd
(I
0
e
V
dd
/nV
T
)(N/f ) where f K(V
dd
2c), f is the
CPU clock frequency, V
T
is thermal voltage and C, I
0
, n and
K are CPU-dependent parameters [23].
4 DMMT framework
Fig. 2 shows an MTT scenario in WSN using the proposed
DMMT scheme. Two targets are assumed to be tracked in
Fig. 2. The sensing area is the area of the interested eld. The
sensor nodes are randomly deployed according to a uniform
distribution in the sensing area to track the targets. All sensor
node locations are known to each other using global
positioning system (GPS) in some sensors [24] and
triangulation [25]. The border sensors are always in full
Fig. 2 DMMT WSN framework
18 IET Wirel. Sens. Syst., 2011, Vol. 1, Iss. 1, pp. 1525
& The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2011 doi: 10.1049/iet-wss.2010.0059
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sensing and communication mode. To reduce the power
consumption, all other sensor nodes are in separate mode
using a low-energy communication channel [26]. Therefore
these nodes have to be triggered to wakeup if they are
needed for full communication and/or sensing. The base
station (BS) or sink is responsible for forwarding the desired
information from the WSN to the headquarters (i.e. main
controller) through the internet via satellite or other wireless
technology. For simplication, measurement origin
uncertainty [17] and the false alarms from the sensor eld are
not considered further here. The main goals of the proposed
DMMT scheme are to cooperatively select the next group of
sensor nodes to track the target, elect one sensor node to be
the MN, calculate the next sampling interval, capture the target
in case of MN failure and reform the group in case of conict
node commitments so that tracking continuity is maintained,
and energy efciency and tracking accuracy are improved.
At each time t
T
j
(k), one member of the group that is formed
to track the target T
j
is elected to be the main node (MN
T
j
) and
the other members are called helper nodes HNs
T
j
. The
tracking initialisation is started when each target enters the
sensing area. The border sensors sense the target, localise it
using, for example, triangulation [27], and set the initial
error covariance. Thus, the border sensors predict the next
target state using EKF, select the next group, perform
the election of the next MN
T
j
, initiate the sampling interval
to its minimum value and trigger the next group to wakeup.
If any node s
i
receives more than one request to track targets,
it performs the distributed multi-target selection (DMS)
algorithm to decide its preferred target. For example, in
Fig. 2, Target 1 is assumed to have more importance than
Target 2. The conict node receives the strongest target
inuence strength from Target 1. Therefore the conict node
decides to serve Target 1 and hence the MN of Target 2
performs reselection to select another new node.
At each time t
T
j
(k), the target metadata TMD
T
j
(k) consists of
the target identication, importance or class Z
T
j
(k), location
metadata M
T
j
(k, K
m
) which includes the last K
m
k target
updated locations, predicted state

X
T
j
(k +1|k) and covariance
matrix P
T
j
(k +1|k), sampling interval Dt
T
j
(k), and time stamp
at which the TMD is created. As shown in Fig. 2, the group
proactively sends the TMD to the next group so that the new
grouphas knowledgeof thetarget beforeit arrives intheir vicinity.
The target tracking scenario shown in Fig. 2 is especially
pertinent to command, control, communications, computer,
intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance applications
[28]. The sink node could be an unmanned aerial vehicle
(UAV) patrolling above the sensing area. The threat
evaluation and weapon assignment could be performed in
the main controller. Target 1 and Target 2 could be a tank
and solider belonging to a hostile force, respectively.
Therefore neutralising a target of class tank would be more
important than a target of class soldier. Thus, Target 1 is
more important than Target 2. If a sensor node detects both
targets, it should be encouraged to monitor Target 1
because higher-class targets should be tracked more
accurately. When the main controller receives the target state
information from the sensor network, the UAV could be
made aware and target prioritisation determined accordingly.
5 Detailed description of DMMT
At each time t
T
j
(k), helper nodes, HNs
T
j
(k), detect the
presence of the target, measure its ranges and send the data
to the MN
T
j
(k). The detection model for the sensor node is
presented in (3). In addition to detecting the target presence
and measuring its range, the MN
T
j
(k) is responsible for
group management and computing a variety of algorithms
according to the following algorithm:
1. Reform the group in case of node conicts.
2. Measure the target range. Equation (3) models the sensor
detection.
3. Use EKF [i.e. Equation (14)] to obtain

X
T
j
(k|k) and
P
T
j
(k|k) [i.e. Equation (15)].
4. Send the current target information to the sink as shown in
Fig. 2.
5. Update the location metadata M
T
j
(k, K
m
).
6. Calculate a sampling interval Dt
T
j
(k) using M
T
j
(k, K
m
).
7. Use EKF [i.e. Equation (7)] to calculate

X
T
j
(k +1|k) and
P
T
j
(k +1|k) [i.e. Equation (8)].
8. Update the target metadata TMD
T
j
(k).
9. Select next group for time step k +1 from its neighbours.
10. Perform the election of the MN
T
j
(k +1).
11. Trigger the next group for time step k +1 to wakeup.
In the following sections, full descriptions of the elements
of the above algorithm are explained.
5.1 Sampling interval selection
The proposed DMMT scheme is adaptive to the randommotion
that may be associated with a target. Energy efciency is
improved by seamless tracking. To successfully predict the
target location, the value of the sampling interval is small
when the target moves or manoeuvres in unpredictable fashion
and vice versa. The target movement pattern is modelled using
the location metadata. The location metadata of the last K
m
tracking snapshots of target T
j
are modelled as follows
M
T
j
(k, K
m
) =
d
n
j
(k)
d
t
j
(k)
(17)
where d
n
j
(k) is the net travel of the target during the last K
m
tracking snapshots and d
t
j
(k, K
m
) is the total travel of the
target during the last K
m
tracking snapshots. One example of
the calculation of M
T
j
(k, K
m
) is shown in Fig. 3. M
T
j
(k, K
m
) is
equal to unity when the target moves in a completely uniform
manner. It is reduced when the target starts moving in bends.
d
n
j
(k) and d
t
j
(k, K
m
) are calculated according to
d
n
(k, K
m
) =
.................
[

L
diff 1
j
]

L
diff 1
j
]

(18)
d
t
(k, K
m
) =

k1
j=kK
m
.................
[

L
diff 2
j
]

L
diff 2
j
]

(19)
where for

L
T
j
(k|k) = [
x
T
j
(k|k) y
T
j
(k|k)
] which is the
updated target location,

L
diff 1
j
=

L
T
j
(k|k)

L
T
j
(k K
m
|k
K
m
) and

L
diff 2
j
=

L
T
(j|j)

L
T
(j +1|j +1).
The minimum value of the net travel is zero when the target
returns to the same point it started from during the last K
m
tracking points, and its maximum value is equal to the total
travel where the target is moving in a straight line during
the last K
m
tracking points. Therefore the location metadata
are obviously bounded in the interval 0 M(k, K
m
) 1.
In this paper, Dt
T
j
(k) is permitted to adaptively change
IET Wirel. Sens. Syst., 2011, Vol. 1, Iss. 1, pp. 1525 19
doi: 10.1049/iet-wss.2010.0059 & The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2011
www.ietdl.org
in the interval T
min
Dt
T
j
(k) T
max
. T
min
is the minimum
sampling interval, which should be less than the time required
for channel access, propagation delay and any necessary data
processing. T
max
is determined according to the amount of the
motion randomness and manoeuvring of the target [11].
Dt
T
j
(k) is calculated based on the current location metadata,
M
T
j
(k, K
m
) and the previous sampling interval, Dt
T
j
(k 1).
We dene the measured sampling interval, Dt
m
T
j
(k) to model
the impact of the location metadata, M
T
j
(k, K
m
) such that
T
min
Dt
m
T
j
(k) T
max
. Dt
m
T
j
(k) is assumed to be a liner
function of location metadata, Dt
m
T
j
(k) = f (M
T
j
(k, K
m
)),
according to the following equation
Dt
m
T
j
(k) = (T
max
T
min
)M
T
j
(k, K
m
) +T
min
(20)
Therefore the current sampling interval Dt
T
j
(k) is the weighted
sum of the measured sampling interval, Dt
m
T
j
(k) and the
previous sampling interval, Dt
T
j
(k 1) as follows
Dt
T
j
(k) = aDt
T
j
(k 1) +(1 a)Dt
m
T
j
(k) (21)
where a [ [0 1].
5.2 Node selection algorithm
The sensor selection algorithm is primarily based on the
information associated with the predicted target location
probability density function (PDF). At each tracking time
step k, the sensors that are most inuenced by the target
(i.e. the most informative sensors) are proactively selected
among the densely sensors in target vicinity to form the
group, S
g(T
j
)
(k +1) that will track the target at the time step
k +1. The Mahalanobis distance D
T
j
(k +1|k, s
i
) [29]
which considers the predicted target location covariance
P
T
j
(k +1|k) in its calculations is obtained between the
target predicted location PDF and each of the neighbours
s
i
[ S
n(T
j
)
(k) of the current main node, MN
T
j
(k), as follows
D
T
j
(k +1|k, s
i
)
=
.........................................................
[L
s
i

L
T
j
(k +1|k)]

S
1
T
j
(k +1|k)[L
s
i

L
T
j
(k +1|k)]

(22)
S
T
j
(k +1|k) is the predicted target location covariance matrix.
P
T
j
(k +1|k) is calculated using (8). For i, j [ [1, 4], if
P
T
j
(k +1|k) is in a form of P
T
j
(k +1|k) = [P
ij
], then,
S
T
j
(k +1|k) is calculated as
S
T
j
(k +1|k) =
P
11
P
13
P
31
P
33

(23)
The target inuence strength G
T
j
(k +1|k, s
i
) is dened as
G
T
j
(k +1|k, s
i
) =
Z
T
j
(k +1)
D
T
j
(k +1|k, s
i
)
(24)
where Z
T
j
(k +1) is the importance of the target class. The
selection tness function is computed as follows
f
S(T
j
)
[k +1|k, s
i
] =
G
T
j
(k +1|k, s
i
)
S
[S
n(T
j
)
(k)
G
T
j
(k +1|k, s

)
(25)
The qth sensor, s
q(T
j
)
[ S
g(T
j
)
(k +1): 1 l n
g
is selected
so that
s
q(T
j
)
= arg
s
i
max f
S(T
j
)
[k +1|k, s
i
]: s
i
[ S
n(T
j
)

U
=q1
q=1
s
(T
j
)

(26)
where S
n(T
j
)
\U
=q1
q=1
s
(T
j
)
is the set of S
n(T
j
)
members
excluding the ones from s
1
to s
q21
.
5.3 Main node election algorithm
The group is classied into one MN and a number of HN(s).
As described at the beginning of this section, the MN
typically performs more processing and communication
activities. Hence, choosing the MN is a crucial issue to
maximise the energy saving and the network lifetime.
Based on energy models in Section 3.4, the data
transmission energy consumption is proportional to the
square of the distance between the source and the
destination. Node centrality is dened to indicate how much
the node is in the groups centre. Therefore energy-efcient
communication is maximised by selecting the MN to be the
node that has largest node centrality. Mathematically for the
Fig. 3 Sampling interval selection
a Adaptive sampling interval
b Location metadata calculation
20 IET Wirel. Sens. Syst., 2011, Vol. 1, Iss. 1, pp. 1525
& The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2011 doi: 10.1049/iet-wss.2010.0059
www.ietdl.org
target T
j
, C
T
j
(k +1, s
i
) is the node centrality of the sensor
node s
i
[ S
g(T
j
)
(k +1) at time step k +1 and it is dened
as the inverse of summation of the distances between the
sensor node s
i
[ S
g(T
j
)
(k +1) and the other sensor node
members of the group S
g(T
j
)
(k +1). C
T
j
(k +1, s
i
) is
calculated according to the following equation
C
T
j
(k +1, s
i
) =
1
S
j[S
g(T
j
)
(k+1)
.......................
[L
s
i
L
s
j
]

[L
s
i
L
s
j
]
(27)
Load balancing among the group of sensor nodes is another
important factor to be considered in the election algorithm,
especially when the remaining energy in the nodes is
diverse. This means that load balancing is improved by
selecting the node that has maximum remaining energy as
the MN. Therefore f
E(T
j
)
[k +1, s
i
] is the election tness
function of the sensor node s
i
[ S
g(T
j
)
(k +1) and is
computed as follows
f
E(T
j
)
[k +1, s
i
] = b
C
T
j
(k +1, s
i
)
S
j[S
g(T
j
)
(k+1)
C
T
j
(k +1, s
j
)
+(1 b)
E
s
i
S
j[S
g(T
j
)
(k+1)
E
s
j
(28)
where E
s
i
is the remaining energy of sensor node s
i
and
d [ [0, 1] is a weighting parameter used to balance the
load with the energy consumption. Therefore the next
MN(k +1) is elected so that it has the largest election
tness function f
E(T
j
)
according to the following equation
MN
T
j
(k +1) = arg
s
i
max f
E(T
j
)
[k +1, s
i
] (29)
5.4 DMS algorithm
The conict node (s
c
) that can detect the targets set (S
T
) at the
same time decides locally their preferred target by running the
DMS algorithm (see Fig. 4).
D(T
j
, s
c
) in line 1 is Mahalanobis distance between the T
j
predicted location PDF and conict node (s
c
). Both target
importance and the distance from the target to the sensor
node are considered in the calculation of target inuence
strength. Therefore if two targets share the same
importance, the conict node will select the closer one. On
the other hand, conict node will select the target with
more importance if the two targets are the same distance
from it. Otherwise, the ratio between the target importance
and distance is computed for target selection.
5.5 Target recovery mechanism
One of the main requirements of target tracking applications
is reliability such that the target is monitored at all times.
Tracking can fail owing to failure of a group member
because of battery drain, or failure of the nodes software or
hardware. In case of the failure of HN before sending its
target measurement, the MN performs the tracking
algorithm with the remaining group members. However,
failure of the MN causes to lose the target because it
performs the processing and management duties of the
tracking process. As shown in Fig. 5, recovery is performed
in levels to reduce the energy consumption. At each level,
farer nodes are involved to nd the lost target.
At each tracking time t
T
j
(k +1), the sink node (BS)
activates a timer for recovery which determines when
recovery will start. If the sink node does not receive the
target information from MN
T
j
(k +1) after this timer, it
assumes that the MN
T
j
(k +1) is crashed or died and the
target is lost. Thus, the sink node initiates rst-level
recovery by triggering the rst-level recovery nodes (S
r
1
) to
wakeup and search for the target. In the rst-level recovery,
the recovery nodes (S
r
1
) are the nodes inside the circle
[X

L
T
j
(k|k)][X

L
T
j
(k|k)]

= (v
T
j
(k|k) t
e
+R
s
)
2
(30)
where X [x y]

, R
s
is the sensing range, t
e
is the time
elapses since the target was last sensed and v
T
j
(k|k) is the
target updated speed which is dened v
T
j
(k|k) =
....................
x
2
T
j
(k|k) + y
2
T
j
(k|k)

. If the sink node does not receive the

target information from the rst-level recovery nodes, the
next level of recovery will be performed. In the second level
recovery, the recovery nodes (S
r
2
) are inside the circle
[X

L
T
j
(k|k)][X

L
T
j
(k|k)]

= (v
T
j
(k|k) t
e
+2R
s
)
2
(31)
Fig. 5 Target recovery mechanism Fig. 4 DMS algorithm
IET Wirel. Sens. Syst., 2011, Vol. 1, Iss. 1, pp. 1525 21
doi: 10.1049/iet-wss.2010.0059 & The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2011
www.ietdl.org
The recovery level continues until the target is capture. The
recover nodes (s
r
l
) in lth level recovery are inside the circle
[X

L
T
j
(k|k)][X

L
T
j
(k|k)]

= (v
T
j
(k|k) t
e
+2R
s
)
2
(32)
6 Simulation results
6.1 Simulation assumption
In this section, the performance of the proposed DMMTscheme
is evaluated using a C++ simulation environment. Although
existing simulators could have been used to evaluate the
proposed scheme, such as NS2 and SensorSim, the authors
chose to implement their own tool to evaluate the proposed
scheme in a way that better matched the particular
characteristics of the scenarios, including the mobility models,
media access control (MAC) layer behaviour, energy
consumption model and tracking protocol operation. The
simulation results are averaged over 20 runs with different
random sensor placement with a xed density. A uniform
distribution of 1500 wireless sensor nodes is randomly
deployed across an area of 300 m 300 m. The radio sensing
ranges are set to 100 and 50 m, respectively. As in [23], the
energy model parameters are set as follows: 1
amp
10 pJ/b/
m
2
, V
T
26 mV, c 0.5, f 100 MHz, C 0.67 nF,
I
0
1.96 mA, E
elec
50 nJ/b, n 21.26 and
K 239.28 MHz/V. The sensing energy cost for all sensor
nodes is assumed to be 8 10
29
J. The data processing and
communication are assumed to use N 3 mega clock cycles
and l 288 bits, respectively. The energy consumption to
trigger the nodes to wakeup using the low-energy
communication channel is neglected [26]. All the sensor
nodes are assumed to have identical measurement noise
variances, s
s
2
0.001. The amount of randomness in the
process noise is q 50 for all targets. S(k +1) and n in (3)
are set to 40 and 2, respectively, for all k. K
m
is chosen to
cover snapshots for the last 2 s of the target path. a in (21) is
set to 0.5. For all targets, an adaptive sampling interval is used
with T
min
0.1 s and T
max
0.5 s. Targets speeds are 10 m/s.
6.2 Simulation results
In Fig. 6, ten targets enter the sensing area from random
positions and travel in straight lines with random directions.
When the target reaches the edge of the sensing area, it
randomly changes its direction to keep travelling inside the
sensing area. The importance of targets is selected
randomly between 40 and 100. The simulation is stopped
after 600 min. The performance metric that indicates the
load balancing performance is dened as follows
P
m
=
S
m
j=1
E
s
j
/E
max
s
j
m
(33)
where m is the number of the sensor nodes in the network
(i.e. 1500), E
s
j
is the remaining energy of the sensor node s
j
and E
max
s
j
is the initial energy of the sensor node s
j
which is chosen randomly over the interval,
0 , E
max
s
i
, 1 J. According to (33), high value of P
m
indicates that the percentage of the nodes remaining energy
is high which means that the load balancing to choose the
MN is considered in the election algorithm. Hence, the
nodes can stay alive for longer time which increases the
network lifetime. P
m
, total energy consumption and the
number of the dying nodes are recorded are plotted in
Fig. 6 against the weighting parameter beta (b) which is
dened in (28). In Fig. 6, with increasing the weighting
parameter beta, P
m
decreases and the number of dying
nodes increases because according to (28), high value of
beta reduces the effect of the load balancing between the
sensor nodes in the election process. On other word, with
increasing the beta, the MN is more likely to be elected
based on its centrality among the other sensor nodes
regardless of its remaining energy. Therefore the MN will die
quickly if its remaining energy is small. The total energy
consumption decreases by increasing the beta because the
electing the MN based on the node centrality improves the
energy efciency. However, the energy consumption starts to
rise at beta of 0.8 because the number of dying nodes
increase dramatically which causes the distances between
group nodes to increase. In the next simulators, beta is set to 0.6.
In Figs. 7 and 8, particular locations and the selected sensors
for three targets with importance of 30, 20 and 10 are shown
with and without consideration of the target classes. In
Fig. 7, since Target 1 is the most important one, its selected
group nodes are the nearest to it compared to other targets.
In Fig. 8, the sensor selected for a particular target cannot
then be reselected for another, even if it has higher importance.
In the following gures, Target 1, 2 and 3 travel for 60 s
with importance of 30, 20 and 10, respectively, along the
Fig. 7 Selected sensors with considering target class Fig. 6 Election algorithm performance
22 IET Wirel. Sens. Syst., 2011, Vol. 1, Iss. 1, pp. 1525
& The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2011 doi: 10.1049/iet-wss.2010.0059
www.ietdl.org
paths shown in Fig. 9. The border sensors initiate the tracking
process with initial Target 1, 2 and 3 states of [15 5 15 5]

, [15
5 16 5]

and [15 5 14 5]

, respectively. The initial covariance

matrix for all targets is 10I, where I is the identity matrix. The
tracking update error of T
j
is dened as the trace of
the updated state covariance matrix P
T
j
(k|k). In Fig. 9, the
true and estimated target trajectories for the proposed
scheme are plotted. The estimated trajectory is close to the
true trajectory.
The sampling interval variation over time for each target is
plotted in Fig. 10. The measured sampling interval is
proportional to the location metadata. Therefore the sampling
interval is a weighted sum of the measured sampling interval
and the previous sampling interval. The sampling interval is
large during times when a targets travel along a uniform path,
and hence the energy efciency is improved. On the other
hand, the sampling interval reduces when the target makes
sharp manoeuvres, and hence the tracking accuracy is
maintained and seamless tracking is achieved.
The tracking update errors for each target with and without
target class consideration are plotted in Figs. 11 and 12,
respectively. As shown in Fig. 9, targets travel close to each
other during the rst 20 s. Therefore conict nodes arise
during that period. In Fig. 11, during the rst 20 s, the
tracking error is smaller for the higher-importance targets.
On the other hand, in Fig. 12 tracking error can take a
similar value for all the targets.
The proposed scheme is compared against the schemes of
Xiao et al. [12], Lin et al. [11] and one with a uniform
sampling interval of 0.1 s. Similar to the proposed approach,
Fig. 11 Tracking update error for different targets with target
class consideration
Fig. 12 Tracking update error for different targets without target
class consideration
Fig. 8 Selected sensors without considering target class
Fig. 9 Real and estimated trajectories for different targets
Fig. 10 Sampling intervals for different targets
IET Wirel. Sens. Syst., 2011, Vol. 1, Iss. 1, pp. 1525 23
doi: 10.1049/iet-wss.2010.0059 & The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2011
www.ietdl.org
the schemes of Xiao and Lin adopt an adaptive sampling
interval. In Xiaos scheme, the next sampling interval is
computed so that the tracking update error is satisfactory.
The threshold of the updated tracking accuracy for Xiaos
approach is set to 18. In Lins approach, the next sampling
interval is calculated so that the tracking prediction error is
satisfactory. The prediction tracking accuracy threshold for
Lins approach is set to 5.
The total energy consumption for different schemes is
plotted in Fig. 13. According to Section 5, the HNs perform
sensing and communications activities while the MN
performs sensing, and processing and communication
activities. At each tracking snapshot (i.e. tracking time
step), the total energy consumption is the summation of
energy required for sensor sensing, and communication and
processing activities over all previous tracking snapshots,
averaged for 20 simulation runs. Energy consumption is
calculated using the models and the assumptions proposed
in Sections 3.4 and 6.1, respectively. At the end of the
simulation, the total energy consumption for all targets of
the proposed, uniform, Lin and Xiao schemes are 0.76,
3.58, 1.14 and 2.67 J, respectively, averaged over 20
simulations. Therefore the proposed approach can save 79,
33 and 72% of the energy used by uniform, Lin and Xiao
schemes, respectively. This represents a signicant
improvement.
7 Conclusion
In this paper, a multi-target multi-sensor scheme for energy-
efcient target tracking in WSNs is presented. At each
tracking step, the sampling interval is computed such that
the prediction is likely to succeed and the tracking is
continuous. The next tracking group is then proactively
selected and one of the nodes is elected as a MN. Thus, the
energy efciency of the communication is improved.
Finally, conict nodes locally decide the preferred
target based on target importance and their distance from
the target.
Simulation results show that the proposed scheme can
successfully track targets that move along paths that include
random abrupt manoeuvrings. Additionally, the tracking
accuracy is better for targets of higher importance. The
scheme is compared with well-known approaches and the
results show that the proposed adaptive approach reduces
the energy consumption while maintaining seamless
tracking.
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