Distributed Localization of Active Transmitters in a Wireless Sensor Network

Abstract

In today\u27s military environment, emphasis has been placed on bandwidth efficiency and total use of the available spectrum. Current communication standards divide the spectrum into several different frequency bands, all of which are assigned to one or multiple primary users. Cognitive Radio utilizes potential white spaces that exist between currently defined channels or in time. One under-explored dimension of white space exploration is spatial. If a frequency band is being used in one region, it may be underutilized, or not occupied in another. Using an active localization method can allow for the discovery of spatial white; trying to spatially map all of the frequencies in a large area would become very computationally intensive, and may even be impractical using modern centralized methods. Applying a distributed method and the concepts discussed in Wireless Distributed Computing to the problem can be scaled onto many small wireless sensors and could improve the measuring system\u27s effectiveness. For a bandwidth contested environment that must be spectrally mapped, three metrics stand out: Accuracy, Power Consumption, and Latency. All of these metrics must be explored and measured to determine which method could be most effectively applied to the spectral mapping of a spatial environment