Batteries typically burn out within\u202f a few\u202fdays,\u202f just as cell phones suck up more power when running multiple operations. <\/cite><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Traditionally, these\u202fsensor\u202fnodes\u202foperate on full power,\u202frunning all devices\u00a0simultaneously, but the batteries that power them typically burn out within\u202fa few\u202fdays\u202fof operation, \u202fjust as cell phones suck up more power when running multiple operations. This causes sensing failures which,\u00a0in\u202fturn,\u202fleads to holes in\u00a0coverage and affects tracking performance.<\/p>\n This poses a\u202fchallenge\u202fto the Navy, since it deploys thousands of acoustic sensor networks\u202fthroughout the ocean,\u202fwhere\u202fbattery replacement can be time-consuming or impossible.<\/p>\n To address\u202fthe\u202fchallenge, Shalabh\u202fGupta, a UConn\u202fengineer and researcher at\u00a0the National Institute for Undersea Vehicle Technology<\/a>, devised the concept of a\u202f\u201csmart sensor\u202fnetwork\u201d\u202fthat is energy-efficient as well as resilient to failures.<\/p>\n In a smart sensor network, sensor nodes adapt their sensing modalities based on the information about the targets’ whereabouts. Thus, the nodes around the target, such as a ship or submarine, activate their high-power sensing devices to track the target accurately, pinpointing its location, velocity, and trajectory.<\/p>\n On the other hand,\u202fthe nodes that are located farther away from the\u202ftarget cycle between low-power sensing\u202fand\u202fsleep\u202fstates to minimize energy consumption while still remaining aware.<\/p>\n Thus, if a low-power sensor detects a target, the node switches to high-power sensing to track it. Similarly, the high-power sensing devices that are\u00a0tracking the target\u00a0predict the target\u2019s trajectory and\u202falert other\u202fsensors within range of the\u202ftarget\u2019s path, so that they switch to high power. Once the\u202ftarget\u202fhas passed outside of a sensor’s range, it\u202freverts\u00a0to\u202flow-power mode.<\/p>\n The smart sensor networks also provide resilience. If a few nodes in the network fail, then the nodes surrounding the hole in coverage formed by the failed nodes\u00a0jointly optimize to expand their sensing ranges to cover the gap.<\/p>\n \u201cThese networks have to\u202fcontain built-in, distributed intelligence,\u201d\u202fsays Gupta, an assistant professor of\u202felectrical and computer engineering.<\/p>\n His\u202ffirst\u202fresearch\u202fpaper<\/a> on the algorithm, coauthored by graduate student James Hare, was published online\u202fin IEEE Transactions on Cybernetics<\/em><\/a> in August 2017.<\/p>\n With this advance, crews on ships and submarines will be able to track enemy watercraft with batteries that last about\u202f60 to\u202f90 percent longer,\u202fGupta says.<\/p>\n Gupta\u2019s\u202flab has prototypes of the sensors for ground use, and\u202fhas been talking with Navy\u202fpersonnel\u202fabout using them for the underwater acoustic sensor network.\u202f\u202fHe\u00a0is currently seeking funding to build underwater sensors.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A UConn\u202fresearcher at\u00a0the National Institute for Undersea Vehicle Technology is developing a ‘smart sensor network’ that is\u202fenergy-efficient and resilient.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":136165,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1866,2459,2076,1875,173,2225],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[175],"class_list":["post-136002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-engr","category-graduate-students","category-research","category-grad-school","category-uconn-avery-point","category-uconn-storrs"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-25 18:35:39","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/76"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136002"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136002\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":136203,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136002\/revisions\/136203"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/136165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136002"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=136002"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=136002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Intelligent](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/SN-llustration-color-1024x699.jpg\")
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