OCO: Optimized Communication & Organization for Target Tracking in Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor networks (WSN) have affected various military and civilian applications. Target tracking is one of the top applications of WSNs. Efficient computation and energy dissipation are critical requirements for a WSN when used in target tracking. The goals are to maximize the network´s lifetime while ensuring accuracy. Existing methods such as the LEACH-based algorithms suffer either complex computations or redundant data/sensor deployment. Those drawbacks result in inefficient energy use and/or computation overhead. Optimized communication and organization (OCO) is a method that provides self-organizing and routing capabilities. OCO ensures maximum accuracy, efficient energy dissipation, and low computation overhead. We have conducted simulation-based evaluations to compare the performance of OCO against LEACH and direct communication (DC), under various scenarios. This paper discusses OCO, the simulation set-up, the performance metrics, and the analysis of the results