Abstract: Wireless sensor networks are special purpose structures: their architectures and operations are designed to satisfy pre-specified signal processing objectives. Thus, the overall performance of a wireless sensor network is determined by the satisfaction of the performance criteria that are pertinent to the undertaken signal processing objective. Signal processing objectives are classified as either detection among finite hypotheses, or parameter estimation or estimation of the acting data generating process, and the pertinent performance criteria include decision/estimation accuracy and conve4rgence rate, where detection/estimation accuracy is generally monotonically increasing with the number of observation data processed. When time constraints are imposed on high accuracy detection/estimation, the consequence is increased required overall data rates. At the same time, in wireless sensor networks, observation data are collected and processed by life-limited nodes, whose life -span is a function of the data rates they process. Thus, required overall data rates, in conjunction with rate-dependent node life-spans, necessitate networkarchitecture and network-operations adaptations, so that the nodes’ survivability limitations do not interfere with the required network overall performance. Since the network-architecture and network-operations adaptations are functions of the acting data rates, it is eminent that data rates be monitored and that rate changes be detected accurately and rapidly. In this talk, we consider a wireless sensor network whose architecture consists of micro-sensors, microsensor clusters and a backbone network of cluster-heads and a fusion center. The network’s purpose is to execute a signal processing operation, while honoring the time constraints and the performance requirements imposed by the application and while adhering to the limited life-spans of the sensors and the cluster-heads. Data rates are time-varying in such a network, mainly due to expiring life-limited nodes. We focus on the problem of dynamic rate allocation, facilitated by a rate monitoring higher level protocol. We present a rate monitoring algorithm and study the stability of the rate allocation/rate monitoring coupled system.

Brief Biography of the Speaker:
P. Papantoni Kazakos was born in Greece. She received the Diploma in Electrical, Mechanical and Industrial Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens, Greece, in 1968; the M.S, degree from Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, in 1970; and the Ph.D. from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, in 1973, both in Electrical Engineering with specialization in Statistical Communications and with minor in Mathematics. From 1973 to 1978 she was faculty in Electrical Engineering at Rice University, Houston, TX. From September 1978 to August 1986 she was faculty in Electrical Engineering at the University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, with the final rank of professor. In September 1986, she joined the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, where she was professor of Electrical Engineering and Mathematics, until December 1994. From September 1993 to August 1994, she was the holder of the NSERC/OCRI Industrial Research Chair in High-Speed Networks at the University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada, on leave from the University of Virginia. From January 1995 to August 2000 she held the “Larry” Drummond Chair in Computer Engineering at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL. Since August 2000 she has been Chair and then Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Colorado, Denver, CO. In 1977, she spent one year with Bell Laboratories, Holmdel, NJ, on leave from ice University. In 1981, she spent one year on special assignment as a Scientific Officer and Contract Monitor at the U.S. Office of Naval Research, Arlington, VA, on leave from the University of Connecticut. In the 2006 – 2007 academic year, she worked with the Systems Architecture Laboratory at George Mason University as a senior scientist, on sabbatical from the University of Colorado. Her research interests include Statistical Decision Theory, Distributed Processing and Neural Network Structures, Statistical-Communications, Information Theory, Robust Statistical and Encoding Methods, Stochastic Processes, Computer-Communication Networks, Sensor Networks and organizational networks. She is coeditor and contributor to the book: Nonparametric Methods in Communications (New York, Marcel Dekker, 1977). She is also coauthor of the book: Detection and Estimation (Computer Science Press, 1989). In addition to these books, she has published over 225 refereed technical papers. Dr. Papantoni is a Fellow of IEEE; for “Contributions to Communication Networks and to Detection and Estimation Theory”, a member of the American Mathematical Society, the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, Eta kappa Nu, Sigma Xi, the Society of Women in Science and the Society of Women in Engineering. She has served as the Secretary to the Board of Governors of the IEEE Information Theory Group, she has been Editor for Random Access Systems of the IEEE Communications Transactions and has been member of the U.S. Army Basic Research Committee of the National Research Council. She has also been a member of the Editorial Board for the Journal of Wireless Networks, as well as the IEEE COMSOC technical committees on Communication Theory and Computer Communications.