Networks of chemical sensors: A simple mathematical model for optimisation study

The paper presents an analytical study of the effects of dynamic collaboration in a network of chemical sensors using a simple population and physics based model. The approach is based on the known analogy between the information spread in a sensor network and the epidemics propagation across a population. In this framework we derive analytical expressions which relate the parameters of the network (e.g. number of sensors, their density, sensing time etc), with the network performance parameters (probability of detection, response time of a network) and the parameters of the external challenge (the chemical pollutant and environment). The paper also presents the numerical simulation results in support of analytic expressions.