A distributed heterogeneous sensor network for tracking and monitoring

Distributed networks of sensors have been recognized to be a powerful tool for developing fully automated systems that monitor environments and human activities. Nevertheless, problems such as active control of heterogeneous sensors for high-level scene interpretation and mission execution are open. This paper presents the authors' ongoing research about design and implementation of a distributed heterogeneous sensor network that includes static cameras and multi-sensor mobile robots. The system is intended to provide robot-assisted monitoring and surveillance of large environments. The proposed solution exploits a distributed control architecture to enable the network to autonomously accomplish general-purpose and complex monitoring tasks. The nodes can both act with some degree of autonomy and cooperate with each other. The paper describes the concepts underlying the designed system architecture and presents the results obtained working on its components, including some simulations performed in a realistic scenario to validate the distributed target tracking algorithm.