Decision Fusion in Space-Time Spreading aided Distributed MIMO WSNs

TL;DR

This paper introduces space-time spreading for sensor decision reporting in distributed MIMO wireless sensor networks, enhancing diversity and throughput while reducing interference, with proven performance gains through simulations.

Contribution

It proposes a novel space-time spreading technique for sensor decision fusion in distributed MIMO WSNs, improving diversity, throughput, and interference mitigation.

Findings

Performance gains of 3 to 6 times with STS over non-STS methods.

Effective balance between diversity and multiplexing gain achieved.

Comparison of optimal and sub-optimal fusion rules.

Abstract

In this letter, we propose space-time spreading (STS) of local sensor decisions before reporting them over a wireless multiple access channel (MAC), in order to achieve flexible balance between diversity and multiplexing gain as well as eliminate any chance of intrinsic interference inherent in MAC scenarios. Spreading of the sensor decisions using dispersion vectors exploits the benefits of multi-slot decision to improve low-complexity diversity gain and opportunistic throughput. On the other hand, at the receive side of the reporting channel, we formulate and compare optimum and sub-optimum fusion rules for arriving at a reliable conclusion.Simulation results demonstrate gain in performance with STS aided transmission from a minimum of 3 times to a maximum of 6 times over performance without STS.