4th International ICST Conference on Mobile and Ubiquitous Systems: Computing, Networking and Services

Research Article

Energy-efficient Tracking of Mobile Objects with Early Distance-based Reporting

  • @INPROCEEDINGS{10.1109/MOBIQ.2007.4450984,
        author={Tobias Farrell and Ralph Lange and Kurt Rothermel},
        title={Energy-efficient Tracking of Mobile Objects with Early Distance-based Reporting},
        proceedings={4th International ICST Conference on Mobile and Ubiquitous Systems: Computing, Networking and Services},
        publisher={IEEE},
        proceedings_a={MOBIQUITOUS},
        year={2008},
        month={2},
        keywords={Asset management  Communication system control  Energy consumption  Energy efficiency  Global Positioning System  Protocols  Robustness  Runtime  Wireless communication  Wireless sensor networks},
        doi={10.1109/MOBIQ.2007.4450984}
    }
    
  • Tobias Farrell
    Ralph Lange
    Kurt Rothermel
    Year: 2008
    Energy-efficient Tracking of Mobile Objects with Early Distance-based Reporting
    MOBIQUITOUS
    IEEE
    DOI: 10.1109/MOBIQ.2007.4450984
Tobias Farrell1,*, Ralph Lange1,*, Kurt Rothermel1,*
  • 1: Institute of Parallel and Distributed Systems, Universität Stuttgart, Universitätsstraße 38, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany
*Contact email: tobias.farrell@ipvs.uni-stuttgart.de, ralph.lange@ipvs.uni-stuttgart.de, kurt.rothermel@ipvs.uni-stuttgart.de

Abstract

Many location-based systems rely on fine-grained tracking of mobile objects that determine their own locations with sensing devices like GPS receivers. For these objects, energy is a very valuable and limited resource. A distance-based reporting protocol can be employed to reduce the energy they consume by sending position updates. However, the energy required for position sensing has not been considered in the past. In this paper, we study how the resulting energy consumption from both sensing and update operations can be reduced for distance- based reporting. We show that significant savings are achieved by sending position updates earlier than actually required. For uniform movement, we derive the minimal power consumption analytically. Subsequently, two novel online heuristics are proposed that control the sending of position updates at runtime. Their effectiveness is validated by extensive simulations.