Assessing the Performance of ad hoc Sensor Networks

As an exploratory effort to understand effects of network complexity coupled with interoperability on performance of ad hoc sensor networks, we treat ad hoc sensor networks as random networks. In this work complexity is reflected by the average degree of the network and interoperability by the mean number of sensors in the network that are interoperable. The average degree of the network in this case depends on both the probability of sensor discovery and the probability of sensor connection. For illustration purposes, we consider the binary hypothesis distributed fusion problem and a simple fusion rule. The result shows that the criterion for successful fusion may be violated by the network conditions that depend on the network complexity and interoperability.