A Wireless Network of Acoustic Sensors for Environmental Monitoring

A distributed microelectronic system for the sound/acoustic monitoring of areas of environmental interest, based on a wireless network of acoustic sensors (microphones), and the automated generation of multi-level sound maps for environmental assessment has been recently proposed. This contribution focuses on the relation between the density of the wireless nodes and node operational parameters, like the required communication rate, data compression and power autonomy, in each one of the proposed area coverage schemes/network architectures. The results provide the grounds both for the selection of the hardware architecture on network and on node level, but also for the decision on the distribution of the processing effort between the local and the central processing units.