Computational sensor networks

We propose Computational Sensor Networks as a methodology to exploit models of physical phenomena in order to better understand the structure of the sensor network. To do so, it is necessary to relate changes in the sensed variables (e.g., temperature) to the aspect of interest in the sensor network (e.g., sensor node position, sensor bias, etc.), and to develop a computational method for its solution. As examples, we describe the use of the heat equation to solve (1) the sensor localization problem, and (2) the sensor bias problem. Simulation and physical experiments are described.