Two-level cooperative and energy-efficient tracking algorithm in wireless sensor networks

Conventional target tracking systems are based on powerful sensor nodes, capable of detecting and locating a target in a large deployment area but most systems require high transmission power levels and a large volume of messages, much time for neighbor discovery operations, and many sensors to detect the target at a given time. We propose a two-level cooperative and energy-efficient tracking algorithm (CET) that reduces energy consumption by requiring only a minimum number of sensor nodes to participate in communication, transaction, and perform sensing for target tracking in wireless sensor networks. It is expected that only the nodes adjacent to the target are responsible for observing the target to save the energy consumption and extend the network lifetime as well by using a wakeup mechanism and a face-aware routing. Through performance analysis and simulation studies, we demonstrate that CET improves target capturing speed and outperforms some existing protocols of target tracking with energy saving under certain ideal situations. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.