Designing energy efficient target tracking protocol with quality monitoring in wireless sensor networks

Target tracking is one application of wireless sensor networks and energy efficient target tracking algorithms that can be used for accurate tracking are highly desired. In order to achieve energy savings, we focus on reducing energy usage by limiting the number of sensors used to track a target through monitoring their data quality and by limiting the amount of data being sent to the cluster head. We propose an energy efficient target tracking protocol that uses two algorithms to accomplish this goal. Simulation studies show that the network lifetime is extended up to 35% with application of both algorithms and that the side effect on target tracking accuracy is not too negative.