Distributed Adaptive Sampling, Forwarding, and Routing Algorithms for Wireless Visual Sensor Networks

The efficient management of the limited energy resources of a wire-less visual sensor network is central to its successful operation. Within this context, this paper focuses on the adaptive sampling, forwarding, and routing actions of each node in order to maximise the information value of the data collected. These actions are inter-related in this setting because each node’s energy consumption must be optimally allocated between sampling and transmitting its own data, receiving and forwarding the data of other nodes, and routing any data. Thus, we develop two optimal decentralised algorithms to solve this distributed constraint optimization problem. The first as-sumes that the route by which data is forwarded to the base station is fixed, and then calculates the optimal sampling, transmitting, and forwarding actions that each node should perform. The second as-sumes flexible routing, and makes optimal decisions regarding bot