关键词：无线传感器网络；实时评估；精度；通信
摘 要：This chapter discusses how a wireless sensor network can be built for real-time estimation purposes. The finite capacity of a wireless network in delivering information means that a real-time estimation process has finite accuracy too. Improving accuracy requires faster sampling and more communication; however, faster communication is not always a possibility due to scalability issues and the limited capacity of a network. In fact, in networks where the wireless medium is shared amongst many nodes, the increase in the amount of communication may even have a negative impact on the capacity of wireless medium, and in turn on the quality of real-time estimation (e.g., loss of network capacity as seen in CSMA/CA-Carrier Sense Multiple Access/Collision Avoidance- networks). In this chapter we describe methods and protocols that can be employed to control the behavior of nodes to allow maximal use of the shared medium for the purpose of real-time estimation. We describe how transmission control protocols (adapting rate and range of communication) should be applied in a wireless network of mobile sensors, such as vehicles, to allow the highest possible accuracy given the limitations of the medium. Such protocols have been evaluated in the form of transmission rate and range control schemes in wireless vehicular networks, with the purpose of real-time vehicle position tracking.