Indian Institute of Science Centennial, 29.5.

08

Signal Processing and

Communications for Sensor Networks

Martin Vetterli, EPFL and UC Berkeley

joint work with T. Ajdler, G. Barrenetxea, H. Dubois-Ferriere, I. Jovanovic, R. Konsbruck, O. Roy, T. Schmid,
L. Sbaiz, E.Telatar, M.Parlange (EPFL), P.L.Dragotti (Imperial), M.Gastpar (UCBerkeley)
Spring 2007

Work done within the Swiss NSF National Center on Mobile Information and Communication Systems
http://www.mics.org

Audiovisual Communications
Laboratory
Outline
1. Introduction
The Center on “Mobile Information and Communication Systems”
Wireless sensor networks: from “one to one” to “many to many”
2. The structure of distributed signals and sampling
Sensor networks as sampling devices
Distributed image processing: The plenoptic function
Spatial sound processing: The plenacoustic function
3. Distributed source coding
Source coding, Slepian-Wolf and Wyner-Ziv
Distributed R(D) for sounds fields
4. On the interaction of source and channel coding
To separate or not to separate... That is the question!
The world is analog, why go digital? Gaussian sensor networks
5. Environmental monitoring
Environmental monitoring for scientific purposes and sensor tomography
SensorScope: Intelligent building and environmental monitoring
Real experiences with sensor networks
6. Conclusions

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Acknowledgements
• To the organizers!
• Swiss and US NSF, our good friends and sponsors

• The National Competence Center on Research

‘’Mobile Information and Communication Systems’’ (MICS)

• K.Ramchandran and his group at UC Berkeley,

for sharing pioneering work on distributed source coding

• Colleagues at EPFL and ETHZ involved in MICS

- J.P.Hubaux, for pushing ad hoc ntws
- M.Grossglauser, for making things move
- E.Telatar, for wisdom and figures!
- J.Bovay, for NCCR matters

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1.1 Introduction
The Swiss National Competence Center on Research (NCCR)
“Mobile Information and Communication Systems’’ (MICS)
http://www.mics.org

Goal: study fundamental and applied questions raised by new generation

mobile communication/information services, based on self-organisation.
Cross-layer investigation: mathematical issues (statistical physics based
analysis, information and communication theory) to networking, signal
processing, security, distributed systems, software architecture, DB etc
Examples: ad-hoc networks, sensor networks, peer-to-peer systems
Network of researchers:
- EPFL, ETHZ, CSEM, UNI-BE,L,SG,ZH, 30 profs, 70 PhD students
- 5 clusters, ranging from circuits to applications
Budget:
- 8 MSfr/Year (6 M$/Y-> 7 M$/Y)
- 12 years horizon (2001-2013)
Note: similar to a US-NSF Engineering Research Center

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The NCCR MICS Network
University Basel:
Computer Science Department

ETHZ: Electrical Engineering and

Computer Science Departments

CSEM, Swiss Center for

Electronics and Microtechnology
University Bern: Institute of
University of Applied Informatics and Applied Mathematics
Sciences Western Switzerland

EPFL: Schools of Computer and Communication Sciences

(Leading House), Engineering and Architecture & Environment

University Lausanne:
University Lugano:
Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales
Computer Science Department

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From centralized to “self-organized” (1/2)

• Classic solutions (e.g. GSM, UMTS):

characterized by heavy fixed infrastructures
• Evolution of wireless communication
equipment: computational power N, size P,
price P, ~ transmit power
• 110 Billion US$ for UMTS licenses: is there
another way?

Ad-hoc networking solution:

- multihop, collaborative
- reinvented many times
- self-organization cute but tricky ; )

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From centralized to “self-organized” (2/2)

Why not ad-hoc everywhere?

- fully multihop solution
- sensor networks
- Mesh networks
- peer-to-peer communications

Current practice
-> hybrid solution:
multihop access to backbone

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Some capacity question…..
Gupta/Kumar showed that there might be a capacity problem…!
– the total capacity does not scale well with the number of users
– it depends on the traffic matrix
– the question is hard!

N points (users)

O(N) transmissions from left to right

over
O( N ) transmission links
mean
1
O( N ) capacity per attempted transmission

O(N) users O(N) users Very active research area

Cut set ~ N - random matrix theory
- sophisticated bounding methods

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Some fundamental principle…
Percolation Theory as a Fundamental Concept

sub-critical (r slightly < rc) super-critical (r slightly > rc)

p

rc r

It “percolates” through connectivity, capacity, P2P, gossip, etc

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1.2 The view of the world: Wireless sensor networks!
Signals exist everywhere...they just need to be sensed!
– distributed signal acquisition: many cameras, microphones etc
– these signals are not independent: more sensors, more correlation
– there can be some substantial structure in the data,
due to the physics of the processes involved
Computation is cheap
– local computation
– complex algorithms to retrieve data are possible
Communication is everywhere
– this is the archetypical multiterminal challenge
– mobile ad hoc networks, dense, self-organized sensor networks are built
– the cost of mobile communications is still the main constraint
Cross-disciplinarity
– fundamental bounds (what can be sensed?)
– algorithms (what is feasible?)
– systems (what and how to build?)

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The Change of Paradigm
Old view:
one source, one channel, one receiver (Shannon 1948)

Source Channel Receiver

Next view:
distributed sources, many sensors/sources,
distributed communication medium, many receivers!

sources
channels

receivers

Note: many questions are open!

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The swiss version of homeland security :)
Distributed sensor network for avalanche monitoring:

Method: drop sensors, self-organized triangulation, monitoring

of location/distance changes, download when critical situation
Challenges: extreme low power, high precision,
asleep most of the time, when waking up, quick download
... and all self-organized!
Legacy technology: build a chalet, see if it stands after 50 years!

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The swiss version of homeland security (cont.):
Avalanche and Landslide Analysis through Sensor Networks
(E.Charbon and C.Ancey, EPFL)

Approach
– Sensor network moving within natural event
Goals
– Gain insight into currently unknown phenomena
– Model and validate novel sensor network paradigms
– Miniaturize 10GHz UWB local positioning system
– Gain experience in distributed warning and monitoring systems
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Environmental Monitoring: Technological Paradigm Change
Orders of magnitude less cost for sensing:

100K$ 10-100$

Orders of magnitude of difference in price, size and power!

We expect this will have a tidal effect on
– what is monitored
– how it is monitored
– what is understood
and there are Berkeley motes to save the world!
(and many other platforms of the sort)

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Outline

1. Introduction
2. The structure of distributed signals and sampling
Sensor networks as sampling devices
Distributed image processing: The plenoptic function
Spatial sound processing: The plenacoustic function
3. Distributed source coding
4. On the interaction of source and channel coding
5. Environmental monitoring
6. Conclusions

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2. The Structure of Distributed Signals and Sampling
A sensor network is a distributed sampling device

Physical phenomena
– distributed signals are governed by laws of physics
– partial differential equation at work: heat and wave equation…
– spatio-temporal distribution
Sampling
– regular/irregular, density
– in time: easy
– in space: no filtering before sampling
– spatial aliasing is key phenomena
Note: here we assume that we are interested by the ‘’true’’ phenomena,
decision/control: can be different!

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2.1 Sampling the real world
We consider 2 ‘’real’’ cases, and follow:
– what is the physical phenomena
– what can be said on the ‘’discretization” in time and space
– is there a sampling theorem
– what is the structure of the sampled signal
Light fields
– wave equation for light or ray tracing
– plenoptic function and its sampling
Sound fields
– wave equation for sounds
– plenacoustic function and its sampling

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2.2 The Plenoptic Function [Adelson]
Multiple camera systems
– physical world (e.g. landscape, room)
– distributed signal acquisition
– possible images: plenoptic function, 7-dim!
Background:
– pinhole camera & epipolar geometry
– multidimensional sampling
Implications on communications
– camera sources are correlated in a particular way
– limits on number on ‘’independent’’ cameras
– different BW requirements at different locations

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Examples

3D
3D

2D

5D
4D

[Stanford multi-camera array] [Imperial College multi-camera array]

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2.3 The Plenacoustic Function [Ajdler]
Multiple microphones/loudspeakers
– physical world (e.g. free field, room)
– distributed signal acquisition of sound with “many” microphones
– sound rendering with many loudspeakers (wavefield synthesis)

MIT1020 mics

This is for real!

– sound recording
– special effects
– movie theaters (wavefield synthesis)
– MP3 surround etc

LCAV 8 LS, moving mics

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 Plenacoustic function and its sampling

Setup

Questions:
– Sample with “few” microphones and hear any location?
– Solve the wave equation? In general, it is much simpler to sample the
plenacoustic function
– Dual question also of interest for synthesis (moving sources)
– Implication on acoustic localization problems
– Application for acoustic cancellation

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Examples:
PAF in free fields … in a room for a certain point source

• We plot: p(x,t), that is, the spatio-temporal impulse response

• The key question for sampling is: , that is, the Fourier transform
• A precise characterization of for large and will allow sampling
and reconstruction error analysis

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Plenacoustic function in Fourier domain (approx.):

ω:: temporal frequency

Φ: spatial frequency

Sampled Version:

Thus: Spatio-temporal soundfield

can be reconstructed up to ω0

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Computed and Measured Plenacoustic Functions

• Almost bandlimited!
• Measurement includes noise and temperature fluctuations

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A sampling theorem for the plenacoustic function
Theorem [ASV:06]:
• Assume a max temporal frequency
• Pick a spatial sampling frequency
• Spatio-temporal signal interpolated from samples taken at
Argument:
• Take a cut through PAF
• Use exp. decay away from central triangle to bound aliasing
• Improvement using quincunx lattice

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Some generalizations: The EM case
Electromagnetic waves and UWB
• Wave equation
• 3 to 6 GHz temp. frequency
• And a triangle!

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The EM case and TV channels
Assume a movement model

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On sampling and representation
We saw a few examples:
– Plenoptic function and light fields
– Plenacoustic function and sound fields
It is a general phenomena
– Heat equation
– Electromagnetic fields
– Diffusion processes
This has implications on:
– Sampling: where, how many sensors, how much information is to be sensed
– Gap between simple (separate) and joint coding
– Spatio-temporal waterpouring

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Outline

1. Introduction
2. The structure of distributed signals and sampling
3. Distributed source coding
Introduction
Source coding, sampling, and Slepian-Wolf
Distributed rate-distortion function for acoustic fields
4. On the interaction of source and channel coding
5. Environmental monitoring
6. Conclusions

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3.1 Correlated source coding and transmission
Dense sources = correlated sources
– physical world (e.g. landscape, room)
– degrees of freedom ‘’limited’’
– denser sampling: more correlated sources
Background:
– Slepian- Wolf (lossless correlated source coding with binning)
– Wyner-Ziv (source coding with side information)
Implications on communications
– such results are starting to be used...
– many open problems (general lossy case is still an open problem...)
– separation might not be the way...
– are there limiting results?
Below, specific results:
– Distributed rate-distortion for acoustic fields based on plenacoustic
function
– Also: Distributed compression: a distributed Karhunen-Loeve transform

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Slepian-Wold (1973…)
Given
– X, Y i.i.d with p(x,y) X R
Then: encode separately, decode jointly,
without coders communicating Y

Achievable rate region R2

– R1 ¸ H(X/Y)
– R2 ¸ H(Y/X)
H(Y)
– R1 + R2 ¸ H(X,Y)
H(Y/X)

R1
H(X/Y) H(X)

• For many sources…. rather complex (binning)

• Lossy case: mostly open!
• Example of result: SW based data gathering [CristescuBV:03]

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The plenacoustic function as a model, Konsbruck (1/3)
Stationary spatio-temporal source on a line, measured by a
microphone array

Greens’ function

– FT essentially supported on a triangle!

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The plenacoustic function as a model (2/3)
Quincunx sampling lattice

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The plenacoustic function as a model (3/3)
Distributed rate-distortion functions
– Centralized
– Quincunx sampling based
– Rectangular sampling based

Thus: the distributed R(D) is determined for this case!

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On distributed source coding…
Three cases studied:
– Data gathering with Slepian-Wolf (Cristescu et al)
– Distributed versions of the KLT (Gastpar et al)
– Distributed rate-distortion for acoustic fields (above)
These are difficult problems....
– lossy distributed compression partly open
– high rate case: Quantization + Slepian-Wolf
– low rate case: more open
In many case
– Strong interaction of “source” and ‘’channel’’
– Large gains possible

but we are only seeing the beginning of fully taking advantage

of the sources structures and the communication medium...

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Outline

1. Introduction
2. The structure of distributed signals and sampling
3. Distributed source coding
4. On the interaction of source and channel coding
To separate or not to separate...
The world is analog, why go digital?
To code or not to code...
Gaussian sensor networks
5. Environmental monitoring
6. Conclusions

Spring 2008 - 36
4. On the interaction of source and channel coding
Going digital is tightly linked to the separation principle:
– in the point to point case, separation allows to use
“bits” as a universal currency

– but this is a miracle! (or a lucky coincidence)

There is no reason that in multipoint source-channel transmission
the same currency will hold (M.Gastpar)
Multi-source, multi-sink case:
– correlated source coding
– uncoded transmission can be optimal
– source-channel coding for sensor networks

Spring 2008 - 37
4.1 To separate or not to separate…
In point to point, if R < C, all is well in Shannon land. In multipoint
communication, things are trickier (or more interesting)
Famous textbook counter example (e.g. Cover-Thomas)

R2 Source C2
Channel
Y
log2 3 binary erasure multiaccess
1/3 1/3
X
H(Y) 0 1/3
1

H(Y/X)

log2 3 R1 1 C1
H(X/Y) H(X)

No intersection, but communication possible!

Spring 2008 - 38
Sensor networks and source channel coding
[GastparV:03/04]
Consider the problem of sensing
– one source of analog information but many sensors
– reconstruct an estimate at the base station
Model: The CEO problem [Berger et al], Gaussian case
W1
U1 X1
F1

W2
U2 X2 Z
F2

Source S Y S
G

WM
UM XM
FM

Question: distributed source compression and MIMO transmission or

uncoded transmission?

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Example: Gaussian Source, Gaussian Noise

Performance (cst or poly. growing power shared among sensors):

– with uncoded transmission:
– with separation:
Exponential suboptimality!

Condition for optimality: measure matching!

–
–
– Can be generalized to many sources

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It is the best one can do:

Communication between sensors does not help as M grows!

Intriguing remark:
– by going to ‘’bits’’, MSE went from 1/M to 1/Log(M)
– ‘’bits’’ might not be a good idea for distributed sensing and
communications
If not ‘’bits’’, what is information in networks? [Gastpar:02]

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Outline

1. Introduction
2. The structure of distributed signals and sampling
3. Distributed source coding
4. On the interaction of source and channel coding
5. Environmental monitoring
monitoring for scientific purposes
monitoring for intelligent buildings
Environmental monitoring
The SensorScope project
6. Conclusions

Spring 2008 - 42
5. The case for environmental monitoring
(MICS applications)

5.1 Monitoring for scientific purposes

– ‘’create’’ a new instrument for critical data
– most current acquisitions are undersampled
– verification of theory, simulations
Environmental data
– unstable terrain, glaciers
– watershed monitoring
– pollutant monitoring, forest monitoring

University of Basel canopy

sensing and actuating

– Example: UCLA CENS. environmental monitoring

Spring 2008 - 43
5.2 The SensorScope Project (2005-…)

(G. Barrenetxea, H.Dubois-Ferriere,

T.Schmid,F.Ingelrest, G.Schaeffer)
http://sensorscope.epfl.ch

What are we trying to accomplish?

SensorScope:
– distributed sensing instrument
– relevant datasets with clear documentation
– all data on-line, real-time
– anybody can compute/analyze with
Sensor nodes:
– many possible platforms inc. low power (Berkeley motes, tinynode, tmote)
– many types of sensing (e.g. cyclops)
First Step (SensorScope I):
– a few dozen nodes
– self-organized network up for 9 months
– large dataset collects
– fun platform and testbed

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The first network

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The first network!

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Basic architecture

Sensor network with ad hoc data gathering protocols (10 to 100’s)

Basestation with available wide area communication (e.g. GPRS)
Web server with data online
Open source code and hardware

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SensorScope II and III [w. M.Parlange]
Next step: SensorScope II and III
– collaboration with EFLUM (Laboratory of Environmental Fluid Mechanics and
Hydrology)
– objective: gather environmental data for modeling of energy fluxes at earth-
atmosphere boundary
– two large-scale outdoor sensor networking deployments: EPFL campus and
alpine glacier

– very interesting theoretical (physics) and practical problems!

– we need reliable and meaningful data!
Improved networking
– packet combining, routing without routes
– more power efficient platforms (tinynodes)
Data analysis
– signals are far from....Gaussian!

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The core of SensorScope: WeatherStation
WeatherStation
– centered around Tinynode (lowest-power sensor node)
– solar energy subsystem: energy autonomous
– water proof housing
– seven external sensors measuring:
• temperature (ambient and surface)
• humidity
• wind speed and direction
• soil moisture
• solar radiation
• precipitation

Solar energy system First Prototype WeatherStation

Spring 2008 - 49
Power is the basic problem!

Power usage in a Tinynode

(a) Off
(b) Listening
(c)-(g) various sending power

Communications is power hungry

Careful management of power
Power gathering (e.g. solar panels)
Energy efficient protocols for data gathering and GPRS connection

Spring 2008 - 50
WeatherStation Deployment at EPFL and Web Interface

Objective:
• Relevant datasets with
clear documentation
• All data on-line:
http://sensorscope.epfl.
ch/
• Anybody can
compute/analyze with
Results
• 9 months deployment in
2006
• Microclimatic analysis

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Going to the mountains!

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Real deployments: Grand Saint Bernard
Real problem: multihop, changing topology, weather conditions
• All data on-line: http://sensorbox.epfl.ch/main/

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Real deployments: Grand Saint Bernard
Networks conditions
Drift
Power consumption
Code updates
Hardware failures

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Real deployements: Genepi
Real problem: land slides, infrastructure damage etc:

Understanding the changing environment, effects of warming, loss of

permafrost etc

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Real deployements: Genepi
Location: Rock glacier above Martini (VS)

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Real deployements
Latest pictures:
• Fully autonomous camera (look, no wires!)
• GPRS based
• Onboard image processing
• Open platform, linux based (Greenphone)

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A day in the life of Genepi!

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Results from Genepi

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Results from Genepi

QuickTime™ and a
None decompressor
are needed to see this picture.

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Results: Monitoring the Patrouille des Glaciers

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6. Conclusions
There are some good questions on the interaction of
– physics of the process: space of possible values
– sensing: analog/digital
– representation & compression: local/global
– transmission: separate/joint
– decoding & reconstruction: applications
From joint source-channel coding to source-channel communication
– This goes back to Shannon’s original question,
but multi-source multi-point communication is hard...
On-going basic questions:
– are there some fundamental bounds on certain data sets?
– are there practical schemes to approach the bounds?
– what is observable and what is not?
Applications:
– environmental monitoring has many interesting,
high impact questions
– technology amazingly mature
– datasets very far from ‘’usual’’ models

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Outlook: The Swiss Experiment
The Competence Center in Environment of the ETH domain
launched a call for proposal
The SwissExperiment (EPFL, ETHZ, WSL) aims at generalizing the
SensorScope platform for a number of experiments across the alps
It is an extraordinary project!
– Scale
– Locations
– Team
• Totally new approach of doing environmental research
– IT meets environment engineering
– E-science: Open access
• How can we understand and predict environmental change
– Not only science, also risk management
• It combines expertise, puts together a unique team
– Consortium that combines academic institutions, federal offices,
industry, scientific experts and politicians, IT engineers and the public
– Inter-institutional, interdisciplinary, international

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Thank you for your attention! Questions?

© New Yorker

Spring 2008 - 66
References
• On the NCCR-MICS: http://www.mics.org: all papers on line
• On sensor networks and separation
– M.Gastpar, M.Vetterli, PL Dragotti, Sensing reality and communicating bits: A
dangerous liaison - Is digital communication sufficient for sensor networks? IEEE
Signal Processing Mag.,July 2006
• On sampling
– M. Vetterli, P. Marziliano, T. Blu. Sampling signals with finite rate of innovation.
IEEE Tr. on SP, Jun. 2002.
– T. Ajdler, L. Sbaiz and M. Vetterli, The plenacoustic function and its
sampling, IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, Oct. 2006.
– T. Ajdler, L. Sbaiz, A. Ridolfi and M. Vetterli, On a stochastic version of
the plenacoustic function, ICASSP06.
• Correlated source coding
– R.Cristescu, B.Beferull and M.Vetterli, Correlated data gathering, Infocom2004.
– M. Gastpar, P. L. Dragotti, and M. Vetterli. The distributed Karhunen-Loeve
transform. IEEE Tr. on IT, Dec. 06.
– R.Konsbruck, E.Telatar, M.Vetterli, The distributed rate-distortion function of
sounds fields, ICASSP06

Spring 2008 - 67
References
• Uncoded transmission, relays, and sensor networks
– M. Gastpar, B. Rimoldi, M. Vetterli. To code or not to code: lossy source-channel
communication revisited, IEEE Tr. on IT, 2003
– M.Gastpar, M..Vetterli, The capacity of large Gaussian relay networks, IEEE Tr
on IT, March 2005.
• Flow Tomography
– I.Jovanovic, L.Sbaiz, M.Vetterli, Acoustic Flow Tomography, ICASSP06.
• SensorScope
– See http://sensorscope.epfl.ch

Spring 2008 - 68
To code or not to code [GastparRV:03]:
Uncoded transmission for lossy source-channel
communication
It is well known that a Gaussian source over a AWGN channel
can be ‘’sent as is’’, achieving optimal performance
– easy way to achieve best performance (no delay...)
The parameters of source-channel coding are:
– source distribution:
– source distortion or error measure:
– channel conditional distribution:
– channel input cost function:
The art is measure matching!
– D(R): channel has to look like the test channel to the source
– C(P): source has to look like a capacity achiev. distrib. to the channel
– in the Gaussian case, it all matches up! (MSE, power, densities)

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