Tracking Dynamic Phenomena:

Sensor Networks to the Rescue

Krithi Ramamritham
Dept of Computer Sc. & Engg.
Indian Institute of Technology Bombay
www.cse.iitb.ac.in/~krithi
IIT Bombay

More and more of the information

we consume is coming from
sensors in the field.

Traffic Management
# Vehicles expected on Pacifica Highway
above threshold?

Early Warning System For

Landslide Prediction using
Sensor Networks

IIT Bombay

Major Landslides
Major Landslide
Prone Areas
Himalayas
Western ghats

Wireless agri sensors for

crop disease forecasts

wind speed
wind direction
Upload
updates
periodically

air temperature
relative humidity
solar radiation
evaporation rate
6

Sensornet Apps.
redwood
forest
microclimate
monitoring

smart
cooling
in
data centers

http://www.hpl.hp.com/research/dca/smart_cooling/

condition-based
maintenance

bridge
structural
integrity

and More

Types of Sensors
Weather
Vibration
2 or 3 axis accelerometers

Tracking
Microphone (for ranging
and acoustic signatures)
Magnetometer
GPS
RFID Reader
EEPROM
512K off chip, 32K on chip

Many megabytes in the future

Writes at disk speeds, reads at RAM speeds
Interface : random access, read/write pages
8

Power Consumption and Lifetime

Power typically supplied by a small battery
1000-2000 mAH

Lifetime, power consumption varies by application

Mica2 processor:
5mA active, 1 mA idle, 5 uA sleeping
CC1000 Radio
5 mA listen, 10 mA xmit/receive, ~20mS / packet
Sensors
1 uA -> 100s mA, 1 uS -> 1 S / sample

Queries over Sensors

http://www.intel.com/research/exploratory/motes.htm

Query sensornet through a (remote) base station

Sensor nodes have severe resource constraints

Limited battery power, memory, processor, radio range

Communication is the major source of battery drain

transmitting a single bit of data is equivalent to 100s of instructions

base station
(root, coordinator)
10

Local storage policy:

store data on nodes
+ simple
+ data collection is cheap
- queries are flooded, costly

base

queries

11

In-network Computation in Trees

Goal is for root to compute a

function of data at leaves
Trivial solution: push all data
up tree and compute at base
station
Strains nodes near root: batteries drain, disconnecting network
Very wasteful: no attempt at saving communication

Can do much better by In-network query processing

Simple example: computing max
Each node hears from all children, computes max and sends to
parent (each node sends only one item)

12

Distributed Processing
BS-1

BS-2

CH-1

CH-3

CH-(m-1)

In-network aggregation

Probabilistic estimation

CH-2

CH-m

CH-4

n
14

Statistical Techniques

Approximations, summaries, and sampling

based on statistics and statistical models
Applications:

Limited bandwidth and large number of nodes

-> data reduction
Lossiness
-> predictive modeling
Uncertainty
-> tracking correlations and
changes over time
Physical models -> improved query answering
15

Monitoring
Dynamic Physical Phenomena
A disaster management team is
interested in tracking an oil spill
with the help of sensors.
Sensors track the perimeter of spill.
Will the spill hit the shore before
5pm?

16

Remote/Range Sensing of Boundaries

Solution Space Characteristics
1. Static sensors
2. Range sensing
3. Approximate location
4. Dynamic Boundary

17

Assumptions

Random distribution of n static sensors

Sensors know their own locations
Boundaries are smooth : belong to C2 class
Second derivative continuous

No abrupt changes of boundary along x axis

Errors in sensor observations independent
and mean zero
Boundaries are curve instead of contour
19

Problem Definition
Compute confidence band at
all times such that actual boundary
lies within the interval with a
confidence
Width of the intervals should not
exceed a certain value
Objective
Update with minimal
communication overheads
to increase sensornet lifetime
Confidence band should have
low loss of coverage

20

Overview
Motivation
Problem: Estimation of boundary
Solution Approach
Spatial Estimation through in-network aggregation
Estimate at minimal locations along the boundary
Tracking dynamics using Temporal Correlation

Experimental Results
Future Work
21

Estimate
Boundary and Confidence Interval at any x
Gather observations
from sensors
within h-neighborhood
Use Spatial Aggegation to
estimate CIs for entire
boundary

h x h

23

Boundary at any x
xi values: predictor vars
yi values: response vars
Relationship modeled as
non-parametric regression

yi d ( xi ) i , E (Y | X xi ) d ( xi )
continuous, bounded and symmetric
Non-negative
k has support [-1, 1] k (-1) = k (1) = 0
Normalized integrates to one
Defines shape of weights

Kernel Properties

24

Kernel Smoothing
n
1
d(x) = Wi (x)yi
n i=1

d(x) is estimated as avg. of

kernel weighted ys measured by
sensors in a neighborhood of x

Choices of weight sequences

Nadaraya-Watson [Nadaraya 1964],
Gasser-Mller

x xi
)
h
Wi (x) = n
x xi
K(
)

h
i=1
K(

what should be the neighborhood of x?

weight is non-zero only if |x-xi| < h
K(u) = .75 (1 u2) I(|u| 1).
26

Optimal (h) selection

Penalty function and ASE

Accuracy of

estimation depends
on h
Avg. Square Error
= Bias + Variance
At optimal h, bias and
variance balance

27

Estimation of Confidence Intervals

How to find the pointwise confidence intervals of d(x)?

(x) = conditional variance

of

Y | X=x

Require Distributed Estimation

28

Partial Aggregates of d(x)

x xi
k(
)
h
Wi (x) = n
x xi
k(
)

h
i=1
n
1
d(x) = Wi (x)yi
n i=1

N1 + N 2
=
D1 + D2
Q1 + Q2 2
2
(x) =
d (x)
D1 + D2

N i = k((x x j ) / h)y j
jSi

sum of kernel x
observation

Di = k((x x j ) / h)
sum of kernel

Qi =

k((x x j ) / h)y j

jSi

sum of kernel x
observation2

29

Data Dissemination Scheme

B
S
N1, D1,

N2, D2,

Q1

Q2

CH

Nodes organized into clusters

S1

CH

S2

CHs form a tree

Nodes send Observations to Cluster Heads (CHs)
CHs perform local aggregations
BS computes final Confidence Intervals
30

Estimation using Real Sensors

Experiment using robot with range sensors

Error Variance changes with x
Confidence Intervals cover the boundary
if # Obs > 100

33

Confidence Intervals

Increase in confidence implies wider interval

Increase in noise variance implies wider interval
34

DBTR: Dynamic Boundary Tracking

Can periodic update scheme work?
Process model to track the dynamics
Linear dynamics can be modeled using
Kalman Filter
state = distance, velocity

Assumption: constant mean velocity

and Gaussian Noise

d(x,ti )
s(x,ti )

d
(x,ti )
35

Tracking the Dynamics

new state = F x old state
+ noise
new position = old position + velocity x ts +
noise
new velocity = old velocity
observation = H x state
1 ts
F

0
1

t s2
2

+ noise
+ noise

t s

H [1 0]

s ( x, ti 1 ) Fs ( x, ti ) Ga( x, ti )
y (ti ) Hs ( x, ti ) ( x, ti )
36

When to update Confidence Intervals?

Spatial estimation involves communication overheads but

gives more accurate information

Temporal estimation gives the changes in boundary

at specific location

Minimize the frequency of updates

Update the boundary only if it has changed by c

37

Block Diagram for TE & SE

Prediction

no

Regression

Update

changed
by c
yes

Use Spatial Estimation as a feedback

Feedback improves the accuracy of Temporal Estimation
39

Simulation Results
Randomly distributed nodes in
100x100 field
TOSSIM as well as MATLAB
Real sensor traces
# of boundary points k = 10 to 50
2 = .5 to 2.0
Metrics
Accuracy of Estimation - LOC
Communication Overheads

41

Loss of Coverage
DBTR better than
individual
techniques
Spatial Est. better
than temporal for
lower
Temporal Est.
improves for
larger

42

Loss of Coverage vs. change in y

Better Coverage with more frequent updates

Increasing helps in improving coverage
43

Communication Overhead
(Dynamics of Boundary)
= 1.2

Velocity # of
updates
0.5
unit/sec

44

1
unit/sec

64

44

Communication Overhead
(Points changing at different velocity)

DBTR adaptively updates based on velocity of boundary.

More Communication overheads for higher velocity

45

Comparison with a Periodic Scheme

DBTR has less communication overheads

Has comparable loss of coverage
46

Heuristic for Minimal # Estimation Pts

1
PE ( x1 xn ) I (| d ( xi ) y ( xi ) | )
n
Estimating

at more locations reduces Interpolation Error

Prediction Error Function shows the same trend as LOC with

variation of k
Increase estimation points until Prediction Error Function
stabilizes

47

Communication Overhead (Spatial)

Distributed scheme
does not change much
with network size
scalable solution

Value of h reduces with

network density

Distributed performs
~20-50% better than
centralized for k = 10

48

Verification of Heuristic
for deriving k

Prediction Error Function stabilizes at k=12

LOC < 4 % at k=12
49

Effect of Variance of Sensing Angle

on LOC

50

Comparisons

Ours

Sensing
Model

ON/
OFF

Accuracy

Range

yes

Confidence
Intervals

/remote

Disseminatio
n Scheme

Characteriz
ation of
boundary

Nature of
Boundary

Smooth

Cluster-based

Nonparametric

Nowa Point
k et al. sensing

All ON

LB MSE

Hierarchical
Cluster based

Staircase like
approximation

Smooth

Guestr Point
sensing
in et
al.

All ON

Depends on
the # of Basis
functions

Specialized
Data Structure
(Junction Tree)

Parametric

Field
Modeling

51

Conclusions & Future Work

A practical low overhead strategy for tracking dynamic boundary
DBTR does not require prior knowledge about the dynamics
Confidence band with LOC < 2% from estimates at a few selected locations

Handle situations where the boundary changes very fast

Strategy for estimating boundary in presence of a deadline
Comparison with Parametric and other Approaches
Boundary tracking with sensors having local sensing capability.
52

Acknowledgment

Subhasri Duttagupta
Prof. Purushottam Kulkarni
Prof. Kannan M. Moudgalya
Prof. Parmesh Ramanathan

54

Loss of Coverage vs. Conf. Level

Better Coverage with higher ON nodes

Should be higher than the error variance
55

References
[1] K. Moore, Y. Chen, and Z. Song, Diffusion-based path planning in

mobile actuator-sensor networks (mas-net): Some preliminary results, in

Intelligent Computing: Theory and Application II. SPIE Defense and
Security Symposium, 2004.
[2] M. F. Fingas and C. E. Brown, Review of Oil Spill Remote Sensing,
in Eighth Int. Oil Spill Conference, SPILLCON , 2000.
[3] R. Nowak, U. Mitra, and R. Willett, Estimating inhomogeneous fields
using wireless sensor networks, IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in
Communications, vol. 22, no. 6, pp. 999-1006, 2004.
[4] K. Wang and P. Ramanathan, Collaborative sensing using sensors of
uncoordinated mobility, in Intl. Conference on Distributed Computing in
Sensor Systems, June 2005.
W. Hardle, Applied Nonparametric Regression. Cambridge University
Press, 1990.
G. Werner-Allen et al., Deploying Wireless sensor Network on an Active
Volcano, IEEE Internet Computing, March/April 2006.

56

References
E. A. Nadaraya, On estimating regression, Theory Prob.

Appl.
10, 186-90, 1964.
T. Gasser and H. G. Muller, Estimating regression functions
and their derivatives by the kernel method, Scandanavian
Journal of Statistics, 11, 171-85 , 1984.
W. Heinzelman, A. Chandrakasan, and H. Balakrishnan, An
application-specific communication protocol for wireless
microsensor networks, IEEE Transactions on Wireless
Communications, vol. 1, no. 4, pp. 660-670 , Oct 2002.

57

Thank You!

58

Smooth Boundary

CIs using non-parametic regression

Uses Spatial Correlation
PAs sent from CHs to parents using multi-hop
59