Communication vs. Performance in Source Localization

Acoustic source localization often requires the transmission of full received waveforms to a fusion center. Using these waveforms the location of a source can be estimated by different methods such as Beamforming, MUSIC, or AML. In either of these cases, a large number or bits is communicated to the fusion center. When communication has to be done in a wireless manner, a considerable amount of energy is expended and where power is not readily available, this can result in shortening the lifetime of the system. We are interested in investigating how much accuracy is lost by reducing the number of bits transmitted by each sensor. This poster demostrates a study of the tradeoffs between localization performance and number of bits transmitted. A few cases were simulated where sensors have a capability of measuring signal power and can transmit only one bit in one case and two bits in another case.