Serial data fusion using space-filling curves in wireless sensor networks

This paper considers serial fusion as a mechanism for collaborative signal detection. The advantage of this technique is that it can use only the sensor observations that are really necessary for signal detection and thus can be very communication efficient. We develop the signal processing mechanisms for serial fusion based on simple models. We also develop a space-filling curve-based routing mechanism for message routing to implement serial fusion. We demonstrate via simulations that serial fusion with curve-based routing performs better, both in terms of detection errors and message cost, relative to commonly used mechanisms such as parallel fusion with a tree-based aggregation scheme.