A hybrid cluster-based target tracking protocol for wireless sensor networks

Target tracking is a typical and important application of wireless sensor networks (WSNs). In consideration of the network scalability and energy efficiency for target tracking in large-scale WSNs, it has been employed as an effective solution by organizing the WSNs into clusters. However, tracking a moving target in cluster-based WSNs suffers a boundary problem when the target moves across or along the boundaries of clusters, as the static cluster membership prevents sensors in different clusters from sharing information. In this paper, we propose a novel mobility management protocol, called hybrid cluster-based target tracking (HCTT), which integrates on-demand dynamic clustering into a cluster-based WSN for target tracking. By constructing on-demand dynamic clusters at boundary regions, nodes from different static clusters that detect the target can temporarily share information, and the tracking task can be handed over smoothly from one static cluster to another. As the target moves, static clusters and on-demand dynamic clusters alternately manage the target tracking task. Simulation results show that the proposed protocol performs better in tracking the moving target when compared with other typical target tracking protocols.