Sensing field: coverage characterization in distributed sensor networks

The ability to characterize sensing quality is central to the design and deployment of practical distributed sensor networks. This paper introduces the concept of a sensing field defining, for each point in the physical space of a phenomenon of interest, a measure of how well a sensor network can sense the phenomenon at that point. Using target localization and tracking as examples, the paper derives an upper bound for this measure of goodness measure, using the Cramer-Rao bound and models of sensor observation and network layout. It then evaluates the validity of statistical observation models used by a family of estimators. Simulation results of applying the analytical analysis to a randomly spaced network are presented.