Dr. Magdi A. Essawy Profile

Dr. Magdi A. Essawy

Senior Lead Systems Engineer at General Dynamics Mission Systems

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Publications (2)

Proceedings Article | 18 April 2006 Paper

Investigation of target tracking performance for unattended ground sensor networks employing distributed cluster management

Sharon Minor, Magdi Essawy, Chad Stelzig

Proceedings Volume 6242, 62420F (2006) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.666008

KEYWORDS: Sensors, Unattended ground sensors, Detection and tracking algorithms, Monte Carlo methods, Telecommunications, Target detection, Sensor networks, Computer simulations, RF communications, Environmental sensing

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Proceedings Article | 26 May 2005 Paper

Distributed cluster management techniques for unattended ground sensor networks

Sharon Minor, James Bevington, Magdi Essawy, Chad Stelzig

Proceedings Volume 5820, (2005) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.604009

KEYWORDS: Sensors, Sensor networks, Target detection, Sensor fusion, Telecommunications, Unattended ground sensors, Monte Carlo methods, Data fusion, RF communications, Data communications

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Smart Sensor Networks are becoming important target detection and tracking tools. The challenging problems in such networks include the sensor fusion, data management and communication schemes. This work discusses techniques used to distribute sensor management and multi-target tracking responsibilities across an ad hoc, self-healing cluster of sensor nodes. Although miniaturized computing resources possess the ability to host complex tracking and data fusion algorithms, there still exist inherent bandwidth constraints on the RF channel. Therefore, special attention is placed on the reduction of node-to-node communications within the cluster by minimizing unsolicited messaging, and distributing the sensor fusion and tracking tasks onto local portions of the network. Several challenging problems are addressed in this work including track initialization and conflict resolution, track ownership handling, and communication control optimization. Emphasis is also placed on increasing the overall robustness of the sensor cluster through independent decision capabilities on all sensor nodes. Track initiation is performed using collaborative sensing within a neighborhood of sensor nodes, allowing each node to independently determine if initial track ownership should be assumed. This autonomous track initiation prevents the formation of duplicate tracks while eliminating the need for a central “management” node to assign tracking responsibilities. Track update is performed as an ownership node requests sensor reports from neighboring nodes based on track error covariance and the neighboring nodes geo-positional location. Track ownership is periodically recomputed using propagated track states to determine which sensing node provides the desired coverage characteristics. High fidelity multi-target simulation results are presented, indicating the distribution of sensor management and tracking capabilities to not only reduce communication bandwidth consumption, but to also simplify multi-target tracking within the cluster.

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