Local node selection for target tracking based on underwater wireless sensor networks

Traditional sonar-array-based target tracking algorithms may be unsuitable for on-demand tracking missions, since they assume that the sonar arrays should be towed or mounted by a submarine or a ship. Alternatively, underwater wireless sensor networks can offer a promising solution approach. First, each underwater node is battery-powered, so saving energy expenditure is a critical issue. Instead of keeping all sensor nodes active, this paper provides a local node selection (LNS) scheme which increases energy efficiency by waking up only a small part of nodes at each time. Second, considering node's limited computing ability and the real-time requirement for the tracking algorithm, instead of employing the centralised fusion structure, we utilise the distributed Kalman filtering fusion with feedback in this paper. Finally, instead of assuming one sensor node can uniquely determine target's location, a more practical range-only measurement model is proposed. Then the LNS scheme and distributed fusion with feedback are extended to our range-only measurement model. The simulation results demonstrate the efficiency of our scheme.