ABSTRACT
The problem of detecting multiple targets in sensor networks from their linear/nonlinear mixtures is similar to the traditional blind source separation problem, where different targets in the field are considered as the sources. A fundamental problem addressed by emergence of sensor network applications is target detection in the field of interest. The multiple target detection problem in sensor networks is similar to source number estimation. In sensor networks, sensor nodes are usually densely deployed in the field. If the targets are close to each other, the observation from each individual sensor node is a mixture of the source signals generated by the targets. In sensor networks, the sensor nodes are usually battery-operated and cannot be recharged in real time, which makes energy the most constrained resource. The left column in the figure corresponds to the performance from applying the centralized Bayesian source number estimation approach on all the 10 sensor observations.
