Heterogeneous Sensor Networks: A Bio-Inspired Overlay Architecture

Abstract

Sensor networks need to provide timely and accurate information about events on the ground to the dismounts and upper echelons in support of the mission and operations. Current unattended ground sensors (UGS) can provide accurate (local) temporal detection of events, but do not provide adequate performance in identifying objects from multiple sensors via the fusion of disparate sensor data. The Army needs timely dissemination of relevant information in the form of classification of terrestrial events, occurrence times, their trajectories and direction of movement of adversarial activities. The Army currently employs heterogeneous UGSs using a sparse deployment to maximize coverage, minimize pilferage and to monitor terrain bottlenecks. The Army Research Lab (ARL) is moving towards an architecture (Family of UGSs) that will standardize communications (e.g. Blue Radio) and this will help to mitigate the heterogeneous UGS network problem. The Institute for Collaborative Biotechnologies (ICB) program is developing and will demonstrate a new system of bioinspired software algorithms for autonomous operations that will leverage proven research to monitor heterogeneous UGS networks from extended ranges, that will collect data in a timely fashion, that will collaboratively control the motion of a sparse network of collectors (e.g. UAV's) using bio-inspired strategies, that will localize and synchronize communications, that will accurately detect and localize field events and will fuse and classify sensed data from UGSs using methods from Evolutionary Computing. The program will also provide both laboratory and field demonstrations of these capabilities supported through ARL by leveraging available resources.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Dec 01, 2008
Accession Number
ADA504191

Entities

People

  • Ananthram Swami
  • Jerry Burman
  • João Hespanha
  • Tien Pham
  • Upamanyu Madhow

Organizations

  • Teledyne Technologies

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms
  • Materials and Manufacturing Processes
  • Sensors
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Acoustic Signatures
  • Algorithms
  • Angle Of Arrival
  • Cellular Structures
  • Databases
  • Detection
  • Detectors
  • Differential Equations
  • Environment
  • Frequency
  • Monte Carlo Method
  • Networks
  • Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing
  • Sensor Networks
  • Signal Processing
  • Situational Awareness
  • Two Dimensional

Fields of Study

  • Computer science

Readers

  • Computer Networking
  • Military Science and Technology Research and Modernization.
  • Sensor Fusion and Tracking Systems.

Technology Areas

  • Biotechnology