STeC: Exploiting Spatial and Temporal Correlation for Event-based Communication in WSNs

Low-power wireless sensor networks have demonstrated their potential for the detection of rare events such as rockfalls and wildfires, where rapid reporting as well as long-term energy-efficient operation is vital. However, current systems require periodic synchronization to maintain network coordination, heavily rely on node placement or use costly long-range links to infrastructure. We present STeC, a novel wireless communication design that directly exploits the spatial and temporal correlation of signals from the sensed phenomenon to orchestrate event-based communication. We leverage the locality of a co-detection, where a physical event triggers multiple sensors quasi-simultaneously, to efficiently collect, characterize and report sensor data. This eliminates the overhead of periodic network activity and centralized control, resulting in more energy-efficient communication with a lower, more consistent detection latency. In doing so, we propose a fundamentally new approach to avoid the elementary conflict between duty cycle and latency requirements immanent to synchronous protocols by exploiting correlated sensor signals for networking. Experiments using real-world traces of a natural hazard detection application show that STeC reduces the detection latency by up to 87 % compared to standard single-hop communication and outperforms traditional schedule-based methods by up to 58.4 x in energy efficiency