Distributed Detection of Randomly Located Targets in Mobility-Assisted Sensor Networks with Node Mobility Management

Performance gain achieved by adding mobile nodes to a stationary sensor network for target detection depends on factors such as the number of mobile nodes deployed, mobility patterns, speed and energy constraints of mobile nodes, and the nature of the target locations (deterministic or random). In this paper, we address the problem of distributed detection of a randomly located target by a hybrid sensor network. Specifically, we develop two decision-fusion architectures for detection where in the first one, impact of node mobility is taken into account for decisions updating at the fusion center, while in the second model the impact of node mobility is taken at the node level decision updating. The cost of deploying mobile nodes is analyzed in terms of the minimum fraction of mobile nodes required to achieve the desired performance level within a desired delay constraint. Moreover, we consider managing node mobility under given constraints.