Detection and tracking using wireless sensor networks

Target detection and tracking is a well-established area of research. However, a majority of proposed solutions in existing literature rely on expensive and specialized sensors, which often have limited coverage. Using low cost sensor nodes is an attractive and complementary approach to scalable target detection and tracking applications. However, tracking with low cost Wireless Sensor Network (WSN), presents its own challenges, namely real time decision making, high frequency sampling, multi-modal sensing, complex signal processing, and data fusion. In this work, we investigate the use of inexpensive off-the-shelf WSN devices for ground surveillance. Our system estimates and tracks a target based on the spatial differences of the target object's signal strength detected by the monitoring sensors at different locations.