Gravitational outlier detection for wireless sensor networks

Accuracy of sensed data and reliable delivery are the key concerns in addition to several other network‐related issues in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Early detection of outliers reduces subsequent unwanted transmissions, thus preserving network resources. Recent techniques on outlier detection in WSNs are computationally expensive and based on message exchange. Message exchange‐based techniques incur communication overhead and are less preferred in WSNs. On the other hand, machine learning‐based outlier detection techniques are computationally expensive for resource constraint sensor nodes. The novelty of this paper is that it proposes a simple, non message exchange based, in‐network, real‐time outlier detection algorithm based on Newton's law of gravity. The mechanism is evaluated for its accuracy in detecting outliers, computational cost, and its influence on the network traffic and delay. The outlier detection mechanism resulted in almost 100% detection accuracy. Because the mechanism involves no message exchanges, there is a significant reduction in network traffic, energy consumption and end‐to‐end delay. An extension of the proposed algorithm for transient data sets is proposed, and analytic evaluation justifies that the mechanism is reactive to time series data. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.