Array Formation in Arrayed Wireless Sensor Networks

An Arrayed Wireless Sensor Network (AWSN) comprises of a large number of small self-contained packages (nodes) that contain a bank of various environmental sensors, a power and a communications module equipped with a microstrip antenna array and an array processor. Although nodes have fixed positions, they may group together under specific rules to form dynamic entities, called wireless arrays, that operate as integral communication modules. Wireless arrays are the main building blocks of the AWSN and network performance highly depends upon their capability to suppress interference, localise nodes and act as message forwarding agents. This paper is concerned with the selection of nodes for the formation of wireless arrays. This selection of nodes, determines the wireless array geometry which greatly affects the wireless array capabillities and consequently the overall performance of the AWSN. ________________ The work presented herein was supported by the Data and Information Fusion Defense Technology Centre (DIF-DTC project 6.5) NOMENCLATURE A Scalar A Vector A Matrix (.) Transpose (.) Hermitian transpose k.k Magnitude exp(A) Element by element exponential of vector A (.) 0 Derivative with respect to manifold length s . (.) Derivative with respect to parameter of interest