On optimal information capture by energy-constrained mobile sensor

Abstract

A mobile sensor is used to cover a number of points of interest (PoIs) where dynamic events appear and disappear according to given random processes. It has been shown in [1] that for Step and Exponential utility functions, the quality of monitoring (QoM), i.e., the fraction of information captured about all events, increases as the speed of the sensor increases. This work, however, does not consider the energy of motion, which is an important constraint for mobile sensor coverage. In this paper, we analyze the expected information captured per unit of energy consumption (IPE) as a function of the event type, the event dynamics, and the speed of the mobile sensor. Our analysis uses a realistic energy model of motion, and it allows the sensor speed to be optimized for information capture. We present simulation results to verify and illustrate the analytical results.