Theoretical analysis of the target detection rules for the UAV-based wireless sensor networks

A wireless sensor network (WSN) is usually deployed in a field of interesting (FoI) for detecting or monitoring some special events. Traditionally, the WSN requires intensive deployment in which the extra sensor nodes are deployed to achieve the required coverage level. While, depending on the developments of the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) techniques, the UAV has been widely adopted in both military and civilian applications. Comparing with the traditional mobile sensor nodes, the UAV has much faster moving speed, longer deployment range and relative long serving time. Consequently, the UAV can be considered as a perfect carrier for the existing sensing equipment and used to form a UAV-based WSN (UWSN). Naturally, in order to determine the efficiency of a UWSN, a question, “what is the probability of detecting a target in the Fol, if an UAV randomly scanned the FoI n times”, is raised. To solve this question, in this article, we theoretically analysed the target detection problem in the UWSN by considering static target and mobile target, respectively. The experimental results further verified our theoretical results.