In-network outlier detection in wireless sensor networks

To address the problem of unsupervised outlier detection in wireless sensor networks, we develop an approach that (1) is flexible with respect to the outlier definition, (2) computes the result in-network to reduce both bandwidth and energy consumption, (3) uses only single-hop communication, thus permitting very simple node failure detection and message reliability assurance mechanisms (e. g., carrier-sense), and (4) seamlessly accommodates dynamic updates to data. We examine performance by simulation, using real sensor data streams. Our results demonstrate that our approach is accurate and imposes reasonable communication and power consumption demands. © 2012 Springer-Verlag London Limited.