Consensus-Based Optimal Target Tracking in Relay Assisted Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

This chapter is concerned with the problem of filter design for target tracking over WSNs. Similar to Chap. 3, we also consider the relay assisted WSNs with SNs and RNs respectively. In Chap. 3, we deal with the parameter estimation in such networks. However, questions of how to deal with the heterogeneity of nodes and how to design filters for target tracking over such kind of networks remain largely unexplored. We propose in this chapter a novel distributed consensus filter to solve the target tracking problem. Two criteria, namely, unbiasedness and optimality are imposed for the filter design. The so-called sequential design scheme is then presented to tackle the heterogeneity of SNs and RNs. The minimum principle of Pontryagin is adopted for SNs to optimize the estimation errors. As for RNs, the Lagrange multiplier method coupled with the generalized inverse of matrices is then used for filter optimization. Furthermore, it is proven that convergence property is guaranteed for the proposed consensus filter in the presence of process and measurement noise. Simulation results have validated the performance of the proposed filter. It is also demonstrated that the relay assisted WSNs with the proposed filter outperform the homogeneous counterparts in light of reduction of the network cost with slight degradation of estimation performance.