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MIRACLE: Mobility Prediction Inside a Coverage

Hole Using Stochastic Learning Weak Estimator
Sudip Misra, Senior Member, IEEE, Sukhchain Singh, Member, IEEE, and Manas Khatua, Student Member, IEEE

AbstractIn target tracking applications of wireless sensor

networks (WSNs), one of the important but overlooked issues
is the estimation of mobility behavior of a target inside a coverage hole. The existing approaches are restricted to networks
with effective coverage by wireless sensors. Additionally, those
works implicitly considered that a target does not change its
mobility pattern inside the entire tracking region. In this paper,
we address the above lacunae by designing a stochastic learning weak estimation-based scheme, namely mobility prediction
inside a coverage hole (MIRACLE). The objectives of MIRACLE
are two fold. First, one should be able to correctly predict
the mobility pattern of a target inside a coverage hole with
low computational overhead. Second, if a target changes its
mobility pattern inside the coverage hole, the proposed estimator should give some estimation about all possible transitions
among the mobility models. We use the trajectory extrapolation and fusion techniques for exploring all possible transitions
among the mobility models. We validate the results with simulated traces of mobile targets generated using network simulator
NS-2. Simulation results show that MIRACLE estimates the
mobility patterns inside coverage hole with an accuracy of more
than 60% in WSNs.
Index TermsCoverage hole, mobility model, sensor network,
stochastic learning weak estimator (SLWE), target tracking.

I. I NTRODUCTION
IRELESS sensor networks (WSNs) have attracted the
attention of researchers for solving problems involving
health monitoring, habitat monitoring, environmental monitoring, and battlefield surveillance [1], [2]. Eventually, the utility
of a given monitoring or tracking application is grossly reliant
on the ability of detecting any target in a given area of interest.
Again, the detection and tracking of a target in WSN-based
applications are strongly dependent on the correct estimation
of mobility model of a target.
Anomalies, which adversely affect the functionality of a
WSN, can occur. A WSN is supposed to cover 100% of the
area of interest by densely deployed nodes. In practice, however, a WSN may have coverage holes due to many factors
such as obstructions, deployment strategy, environmental factors, wear and tear, and mobilityprominently prevalent being

Manuscript received February 10, 2015; revised April 30, 2015; accepted
June 18, 2015. This paper was recommended by Associate Editor J. Wang.
The authors are with the School of Information Technology,
Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, Kharagpur 721302, India
(e-mail:
smisra@sit.iitkgp.ernet.in;
sukhchain.singh@sit.iitkgp.ernet.in;
manas.khatua@sit.iitkgp.ernet.in).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available
online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TCYB.2015.2450836

node failures due to resource constraints. The notion of coverage hole in WSNs can be considered as the lack of actual
measure of the quality of service (QoS). The reasons behind
the coverage hole include sensor gap, sensor failure, target
disabled, and network failure. This paper considers blanket
coverage which provides maximum detection rate of targets
appearing in a sensing field [3].
In real-life applications, the mobility models of external
target nodes or entities are unknown. Again, the mobility
model that the target follows may vary with time. So, the
need for a method of predicting or estimating the mobility
model for future resource allocation is evident. We note that
the words mobility pattern and mobility model are used
interchangeably throughout the manuscript.
A. Motivation
Many prior works (see [4][11]) exist on mobility model
estimation in different networks. However, none of the existing works attempted to estimate the mobility model of a target
inside the coverage hole. At this juncture, it is pertinent to
differentiate between the problems of mobility model estimation in presence of coverage holes and inside a coverage hole.
While the former estimates the mobility model from a set
of sensed information with few incomplete information due
to coverage hole, the latter tries to estimate the model for a
region for what no information is present. Therefore, in the latter case, at first we have to virtually create the information for
that region followed by the model estimation. Additionally,
the existing works implicitly considered that a target does
not change its mobility pattern inside the tracking region.
However, in reality, a target may change its mobility pattern
for decreasing the probability of detection by the monitoring nodes. It is true especially in military surveillance. If a
target changes its mobility pattern, the existing works in the
literature become limitedly useful in predicting the mobility
model accurately. The applicability of mobility model prediction inside a coverage hole could be the use in battlefield
surveillance, building a repository of movements of a target,
and future resource allocation in the presence of missing links
due to the existence of coverage holes. Being motivated from
the shortcomings of the existing pieces of literature related to
target tracking and mobility prediction, we define the objectives of this paper in two folds. First, we want to estimate the
mobility model inside a coverage hole, given that the target
was tracked in the covered zones before and after the coverage hole. Second, we want to find probabilistic estimation

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2

on transitions from one mobility model to another, if the target changes its mobility model inside the hole, and, thus, the
sensed data indicates two different mobility models of the
same target in the covered zones.
B. Contribution
Oommen and Rueda [12] established that the stochastic learning weak estimation (SLWE) mechanism is potent
in estimating a parameter, with nonstationary distribution,
from its observations. In this paper, there exists a possibility of changing the mobility pattern with time by a target.
Therefore, the parameterprobability of convergence to a
mobility patternwhich is intended to be estimated in this
paper changes with time. Hence, we use the SLWE for estimating the mobility model of a target inside the coverage
hole. Further, the samples required for such estimation are not
present in case of coverage hole. For such cases, we use trajectory extrapolation and fusion techniques for extracting the
target trajectory in a coverage hole. Finally, the proposed estimation method infers the possible transitions, if any, among
the mobility models in consideration.
In this paper, we consider one random synthetic mobility model (viz. GaussMarkov mobility (GM) [13]), two
simulator-based mobility models (viz. Manhattan (MM) [14],
Pathway (PMM) [15]), and two group mobility models (viz. Pursue [16], and reference point group mobility (RPGM) [17]) for establishing the prototype solution.
A preliminary discussion of the above mobility models is
presented in Appendix A, which is available in the online
supplemental material. There exists many other mobility
models to classify, which are summarized in [18] and [19].
Broadly, we can categorize them into two classes
homogeneous and heterogeneous. The RPGM and Pursue
mobility models exhibit group mobility and represent the former, while GM, MM, and PMM represent the latter. Moreover,
RPGM and Pursue models are partially random, while GM is
a fully random model. The MM and PMM are also geographic
models wherein they constrain the mobility as per a city or a
campus map. An effort was made to represent as many subclasses of mobility models as possible using less number of
models. However, we have plan to extend this paper in the
future by considering other classes of mobility models.
We employ an SLWE-based classifier in the this paper.
Since the classifier has to discriminate each mobility model,
a set of mobility features help the classifier in the process.
The mobility features are extracted from the trace file. The
proposed scheme uses five essential mobility metrics, as mentioned by Mousavi [20], to affect the classification. In sum,
the contributions of the this paper are as follows.
1) We propose a method for generating target mobility traces inside a coverage hole using the trajectory
extrapolation and fusion techniques.
2) Using the SLWE, we propose a prediction scheme
namely mobility prediction inside a coverage hole
(MIRACLE) in WSNs.
3) We propose a scheme for estimating the expected mobility model transition for all possible combinations among
the five mobility models under consideration.

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C. Paper Organization
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. In
Section II, we review some related works from the literature.
We describe the formal model of MIRACLE in Section III.
In Section IV, we provide the implementation details of
MIRACLE. We report the simulation and experimental results
in Section V. Finally, we conclude this paper in Section VI,
with insight about how this paper can be extended in the future.
II. R ELATED W ORKS
Comprehensive surveys on existing mobility models are
available in [21]. Mobility model estimation was attempted by
a number of researchers in the literature. Jamalian et al. [22]
proposed a fixed structure stochastic automata-based mobility model estimation scheme of a node in mobile ad-hoc
networks (MANETs). The authors considered four mobility
models, and employed two metrics, degree of spatial dependence (DSD) and relative speed (RS), for classifying those
four models. In [4], continuous action-set learning automata
was used for mobility prediction in wireless networks (WNs).
Mousavi et al. [23] proposed a supervised learning-based classification method that is capable of classifying mobility traces,
by analyzing three mobility metrics: 1) RS; 2) DSD; and
3) degree of temporal dependence (DTD).
In cellular networks, mobility prediction has been studied
extensively for single-hop topology such as [7][9], but not
much work exists for multihop topology [4]. The networks
need mobility prediction to study hand-offs or predict a users
future location. Wanalertlak et al. [11] improved the mobilityprediction accuracy by considering multiparametric model.
However, computational efficiency of the proposed method
is very taxing. Markov chain has also been used for mobility prediction. For example, Abu-Ghazaleh and Alfa [5] used
Markov renewal process for future location prediction in WNs.
The main problem of Markov chain-based schemes is that the
schemes are not suitable for infrastructure-less networks [5]
such as WSNs. Venkateswaran et al. [8] proposed a mobility prediction-based energy optimal relay-node deployment
scheme in MANET. Zhou et al. [7] proposed a localization scheme for underwater sensor networks using a mobility
prediction scheme. Kaaniche and Kamoun [10] proposed a
back-propagation feed-forward multilayer neural network to
predict the future location of a mobile user. A model-based
tracking algorithm was proposed in [24]. Xu et al. [25] showed
that target tracking accuracy is improved by jointly prediction
of locations of mobile sensor and target in WSNs.
Recently, Gaussian process (GP) approaches have been studied for modeling target motion patterns [26]. For example,
Ferguson et al. [26] proposed a novel change-point detection
and clustering algorithm for long-term trajectory prediction
of autonomous vehicles. Gu [27] proposed a game theoretic
approach for target tracking, whereas Misra and Singh [28]
used Markov decision process for the same in WSNs.
Hu et al. [29] improve the lifespan of WSN by employing
Kalman filter-based target tracking algorithm. A review of
many energy efficient target tracking algorithms was studied in [30]. The effect of topology on target tracking was

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MISRA et al.: MIRACLE USING STOCHASTIC LEARNING WEAK ESTIMATOR

studied in [31]. The extended kernel recursive least squares

algorithm-based target tracking schemes were proposed by
Zhu et al. [32]. Ni et al. [9] tried to improve the performance of clustering scheme using mobility prediction. On
the other hand, clustering is used for mobility prediction
in [6]. Problem of target track detection using WSN is studied in [33] and [34]. However, unlike MIRACLE, it is not
applicable under coverage holes.
Detection of coverage holes [35] in WSNs cannot be overlooked. The presence of coverage holes can render the mission
of WSN-based applications unfulfilled. A coverage hole detection algorithm coupled with a pursuit algorithm is proposed
in [36] for target tracking applications to assist a pursuer for
tracking the moving target. Yoon and Kim [37] used a genetic
algorithm for maximizing the network coverage in WSNs.
Detection of coverage holes in a 3-D domain using a finite
set of sensors was also studied by Iyengar et al. [38].
Pattern classification using classification rules, given a
set of training patterns, is studied well in the literature.
Thathachar and Sastry [39] proposed few algorithms for pattern classification based on learning automata [40], [41].
They also used a three-layer network consisting of teams of
automata for pattern classification. They tested a network consisting of nine first-layer and three second-layer units on the
two-class version of the Iris dataset. Recently a Bayesian nonparametric dynamic model, namely Dirichlet process mixture
model over GP [42], have been proposed for modeling motion
patterns in a poorly-understood environments. Although the
nonparametric models offer more flexible classification, it has
higher sample complexity and may suffer from asymptotic
convergence guarantee [43]. Misra et al. [44] proposed two
methods for extracting mobility patterns from target trajectory.
However, the analysis was performed for very simple mobility
patterns.
In summary, none of the existing works takes into account
the presence of coverage holes, and hence, the estimation
inside the coverage hole. Furthermore, to the best of our
knowledge, no work exists on addressing the mobility transition issue in WSNs.
III. F ORMAL M ODEL OF MIRACLE
A. Problem Formulation
In order to make MIRACLE tractable, we consider that all
the nodes entering into a coverage hole follow some mobility
model in a given covered zone. We adopt a square grid of
width W units for representing covered and uncovered zones.
We consider a scale-independent model wherein extrapolation
of trajectories preserve the original features of mobility model.
The existence of poles/loops in trajectories have negligible
effect on trajectory splicing. Finally, we consider only a single
target scenario for mobility prediction in a coverage hole.
Let Z1 and Z3 be two zones, which are covered by a
WSN, and let Z2 be the uncovered zone. We concentrate
on Z2 , which is a coverage hole, and consider it as an forward and backward extension of Z1 and Z3 , respectively. The
trajectory T n of a target in covered zone n is a set of all
observations at different time instants in the given zone, i.e.,

Algorithm 1: MIRACLE Algorithm

1
2

3
4

5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20

Inputs: Trace files from covered zones (i.e., T 1 and T 3 )

Outputs: M2 : Estimated mobility model for uncovered
zone, R2 : set of transition probabilities in coverage hole
if the classifier is not trained then
TrainSLWEClassifier (T i )  Comment: Use traces with
known models
for Zone i = 1 and i = 3 do
 Comment: Steps 5 to 17 are trajectory operations
Yi CalculateMobilityMetrics (T i )
T i Extrapolate (T i )
POI FindIntersectionPoints (T 1 , T 3 )
if Number of POI is one then
POT POI
else if Number of POI is greater than one then
POT FindPOT ( )
else if No POI exists then
T1c CutTrajectory (T 1 )
T3c CutTrajectory (T 3 )
POTs CreateBridge ( T1c , T3c )
T 2 FuseTrajectories (POT, T 1 , T 3 )
M2 EstimateMobilityModel (T 1 , T 2 , T 3 )
R2 EstimateModelTransition (T 1 , T 2 , T 3 )

T n = {Pn (x0 , y0 ), Pn (x1 , y1 ), . . . , Pn (xt , yt )}, where the observations are taken over t time instants, and Pn (xt , yt ) is the
sensed coordinate at time t.
We need a virtual transition trajectory T 2 followed by the
mobility model M2 for a target moving through Z2 . We call
the trajectory virtual because of synthetic generation of it
using the trajectory extrapolation. The only inputs we have
are T 1 and T 3 . The final goal can be summed up as a function
of trajectory operations (.) on a set of trajectories followed
by the function of mobility estimation (.).
B. Components of MIRACLE
The overall solution for the problem at hand is illustrated in
Algorithm 1. We formalize the basic components to estimate
mobility model in a coverage hole as follows.
1) Trace Files: We generate trace files for the five mobility
modelsGM, MM, PMM, Pursue, and RPGM, which
are considered for estimation in this paper, as mentioned
in Section I-B. The sources of trace files are obtained
through simulations executed in NS-2 [45].
2) Training of Classifier: All the known trace files of
covered zones are used for training the classifier.
3) Trajectory Extrapolation: The traced coordinates are
extrapolated to Z2 from Z1 and Z3 , respectively, using
simulation-based extrapolation to generate the virtual
trajectories.
4) Trajectory Fusion: It is a two-fold process, wherein
an extrapolated trajectory is truncated approximately
around the mid-range, and then, spliced with the other
zones extrapolated trajectory.

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5) SLWE-based Mobility Model Estimator: We employ an

SLWE-based scheme to estimate the mobility model for
the unknown trace files of covered zones, and the virtually generated trace files of the uncovered zone. More
elaboration follows in Section IV.
6) Estimating Transition Between Two Models: If the estimated mobility models of a target in covered zones are
different, we infer that the target has changed its mobility pattern inside the uncovered zone. It is important
to mention that we consider maximum one transition
among the mobility models by a target. We have plan
to extend it further for multiple transitions in the future.
IV. I MPLEMENTATION D ESIGN
A. Forming Coverage Hole Motion Trajectory
1) Trajectory Extrapolation: Trajectory extrapolation is a
challenging process considering the fact that the problem at
hand involves nonlinearity of underlying equations. Existing
methods for extrapolation are broadly classified into two types.
The first type relies on dynamic equations and their numerical integration [46]. The second type exploits time-series to
extrapolate trajectories using methods such as self-regression,
and polynomial curve-fitting [47]. However, both type of
methods are inaccurate when the coverage holes are large
enough in size and are comparable to the size of covered zones.
In this paper, we, therefore, consider the sizes of uncovered
and covered zones are equal, and use Lagrange polynomial
extrapolation method for trajectory extrapolation.
Let us consider that a set of points Pj (xi , yi ), where
i {0, 1, 2 . . . , t}, and j {0, 1, 2, 3} are given. Assume that
P0 (x0 ,y0 ) is the starting point of a target motion in Z1 . The
target follows a particular mobility model, and reaches the
end of Z1 at a point P1 (xt ,yt ). To affect extrapolation, we now
change the simulation parameters of source and destination
coordinates to P1 and P2 , respectively, and perform another
round of simulation to get the point P2 (xt , yt ) in Z2 . We preserve this simulation run and plot the extrapolated trajectory
from Z1 to Z2 . In the same vein, we perform extrapolation of
target motion trajectory in reverse direction from Z3 to Z2 .
In MIRACLE, the function Extrapolate(.) performs these
operations.
2) Trajectory Pruning and Splicing: After the execution of
the steps of extrapolation, we fuse the trajectories T i , where
i {1, 3}. Three cases emerge in the process of trajectory
fusion, as discussed below. Our interest lies in finding point
of transition (POT) from point(s) of intersection (POIs), if any.
POT is the point that defines the end of Z1 trajectorys contribution and the start of Z3 trajectorys contribution into the
virtual trajectory of Z2 .
a) Case I: There exists only one intersection point between
the extrapolated trajectories T 1 and T 3 , as shown in
Fig. 1(a). The POI, which is in the mid-range (%
of Zones linear expanse) of coverage hole, is chosen
as POT. If no POT exists in that range, then it is treated
as similar to Case III.
b) Case II: There exists more than one intersection points
between the extrapolated trajectories T 1 and T 3 , as

shown in Fig. 1(b). This case results in the selection

of a unique POT from POIs. The precondition for POT
selection is the same as described in Case I. In case of
more than two POIs meeting the condition, a median
POI is chosen as the POT.
c) Case III: There exists no intersection point between the
extrapolated trajectories T 1 and T 3 , as shown in the left
sub-figure of Fig. 1(c). This case results in the creation
of a bridge between the extrapolated trajectories. At
the outset, we incise the extrapolated trajectories at the
mid-region. We choose the mid-region of Z2 by taking the % of mid-point of Z2 . We construct two
sub-trajectories, one from each extrapolated trajectory,
by taking the extrapolated trajectories up to the midregion of zone Z2 , as shown in the middle sub-figure of
Fig. 1(c). We created the sub-trajectories up to the midregion of zone Z2 for preserving the 50% extrapolated
trajectories of both zones Z1 and Z3 . This consideration allows to give equal weights to both results of
covered zones. Finally, we make a bridge between the
mid-points of extrapolated trajectories, as shown in the
right sub-figure of Fig. 1(c).
It is noteworthy to mention that simply connecting the
pruned trajectories could result in discontinuities or cusp transitions. Therefore, in the splicing or merging process, a case
can be completely rejected as an outlier, if the following two
conditions are not satisfied at the selected points:


(1)
L Pi (n), Pj (n) < Lthres
 i

j
 (n, n 1) (n, n 1) < thres
(2)
where, L(., .) defines the Euclidean distance between the
two identified POTs Pi (n) T i and Pj (n) T j , and Lthres
is the respective threshold value. In the second condition,
(., .) is the slope of the trajectories at the nth entries, where
i (n, n 1) [0, 2 ) and j (n, n 1) [0, 2 ), and thres
is the respective threshold value. Equation (1) constraints to
have the length of the bridge lesser than the original trajectories of covered zones, and (2) rejects the outliers such as
object backtracking in zone Z1 without entering in Z2 . Also,
the other cases in which the object enters into the zone Z2 ,
and, then, exits without entering into Z3 , are considered as
outliers.
In
MIRACLE,
the
functions
CutTrajectory(.),
FuseTrajectories(.), FindInterSectionPoints(.), FindPOT(.),
and CreateBridge(.) perform the operations of this step.
B. SLWE-Based Classification
We use SLWE of multinomial distribution [12] for estimating the mobility model from the constructed trajectory
of an uncovered zone. In multinomial distribution, the probability vector determines the probability of occurrence of a
specific mobility model in consideration. As mentioned in
Section I-B, we consider five mobility models for classification. Therefore, we assume that the unknown mobility of a
target in both covered and uncovered zones must be in the
set of those mobility models. We have plan to extend this
paper for any mobility model in the future. Algorithms 2 and 3

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Fig. 1. Trajectory fusion: cases I, II, and III. (a) Case-I: there is only one intersection point between the extrapolated trajectories, as shown in the left
sub-figure, and the corresponding fused trajectory is shown in the right sub-figure. (b) Case-II: there are multiple intersection points between the extrapolated
trajectories, as shown in the left sub-figure, and the corresponding fused trajectory is shown in the right sub-figure. (c) Case-III: there is no intersection
point between the extrapolated trajectories, as shown in the left sub-figure, and the CutTrajectory operations are shown in the middle sub-figure, and the
corresponding fused trajectory is shown in the right sub-figure.

Algorithm 2: Train Classifier

1
2

4
5
6
7
8

10

11
12
13

14

Inputs: Trace files and corresponding mobility models

Output: Converged feature set (D1 , . . . , Dr ) for all
mobility models (m1 , . . . , mr )
Parameters:
r: number of mobility models used in estimation
= {m1 , m2 , . . . , mr } be the action set (i.e. mobility
model set) of Learning Automata (LA)
h: number of attributes used in a feature set
Dk = {d1 , d2 , . . . , dh } be the feature set of mk
flagConverge: A boolean variable, initialized to False
max : Maximum allowable standard deviation for all
actions
for all actions in the action set do
while flagConverge is False do
for all traces of the selected action mk do
Dk CalculateMobilityMetrics (mk )
Compute Dk (t + 1) = (Dk (t) + Dk )/2, where,
t is the iteration index
Compute standard deviation (k ) of converged
feature set Dk (t + 1)
if k < max for all degrees in the converged
feature set then
flagConverge True
else
flagConverge False

Algorithm 3: Mobility Model Estimation

1

2
3
4

7
8
9

10
11

12

Inputs: An unknown trace file (uT), converged feature

sets (D1 , . . . , Dr )
Output: Estimated mobility model
Initialize default probabilities {q1 = 1r , . . . , qr = 1r }
while max(q1 , . . . , qr ) < minProb OR
iterationCount <= minPass OR probability update
amount> 1 do
 minPass: Minimum number of iteration for LA
before exiting from estimation
 minProb: Minimum probability for final selection
of an action
Increase iterationCount by unity
for all actions in the action set do
LA randomly chooses one of its actions, say mk ,
and passes to the environment
Dk CalculateMobilityMetrics (uT)
Compute Mean Squared Error (MSE) between
Dk and Dk
if chosen action is optimal, i.e., arg min{MSEi } is
mi

13

14

mk then
update probabilities of action set using
SLWE (Equation 3)
Return optimal action := arg max{q1 , . . . , qr }
mk

Return converged feature set (D1 , . . . , Dr ) for all

mobility models

describe the operations of the training and estimation process,

respectively, which are used in the MIRACLE algorithm. In
MIRACLE, the SLWE-based classification consists of three
phases of operations: preprocessing, training, and estimation.
1) Preprocessing: This phase ensures that the environment
has necessary estimation of feature sets before the mobility
estimation process is initiated. According to Mousavi [20] the
following five degrees of feature set are sufficient for distinguishing a mobility model. Therefore, we also consider
the same in this paper. We have plan to extend this paper
for automatic feature selection using the scheme proposed
in [48]. In the proposed algorithm, MIRACLE, the function

CalculateMobilityMetrics(.) measures the degrees of feature

set, as stated below.
a) DSD [14]: It measures the degree of similarity of
the velocities of two nodes that are close to each
other in space. Actually, it measures the correlation
value of the velocities of nodes that are neighbors of
each other.
b) DTD [14]: It measures the degree of similarity of the
velocities of a node taken from two different time
instants that are close to each other. This metric reflects
the velocity change in the pathway.
c) RS [14]: It measures the RS of two nodes using the
standard formula |Vi (t) Vj (t)| of RS from physics,
where Vi (t) and Vj (t) are the velocity vectors of
nodes i and j at time t.

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d) Degree of Repetitive Behavior (DRB) [49]: It measures

the repetitive behavior of a mobility model by measuring
the average ratio of time during which a node is located
inside the transmission range of its initial position.
e) Average Distance (AD) [49]: It is the averaged distance between all pairs of nodes calculated over whole
simulation time.
2) Training: In this phase, we generate a large number of
trace files for each mobility model using NS-2 simulator. All
these known traces of covered zones are used for training the
SLWE classifier. Let us consider that the set of mobility models {m1 , . . . , mr } is used for classification, where mr defines
the rth mobility model. Let {D1 , . . . , Dr } be the set of estimated feature sets of all mobility models as explained above
in preprocessing phase. We compute all the values of a feature
set within 1 standard deviation limit, and the values are normalized in the limit 0 to 1. We run all the traces for converging
the values of each feature within 1 standard deviation limit.
Finally, we get the converged feature set {D1 , . . . , Dr } which
is used in the classification stage for predicting the mobility pattern of unknown traces. In MIRACLE, the function
TrainSLWEClassifier(.) performs these operations.
3) Estimation: Let us consider that the action set offered
by the environment is = {m1 , . . . , mr }. An action selected
at time t is k (t), which is symbolized as k (t) = mk ,
k {1, . . . , r}. We assume that X is a multinomially distributed random variable which takes values from the set
{m1 , . . . , mr }, governed by the distribution S =[s1 , . . . , sr ],
r
such that X = mr , with probability sr , and
j=1 sj = 1.
According to SLWE, we achieve the estimation of S by maintaining a running estimate Q(t) = [q1 (t), . . . , qr (t)] of S,
where qr (t) is the estimate of sr at time t for all r, and the
probability qr (t) is updated as per the following rule:


qr (t) + (1 ) qj (t) if x(t) = mr
j=r
qr (t + 1) =
(3)
qr (t)
if x(t) = mr
where, x(t) is a concrete realization of X at time t. We determine the realization of x(t) based on the MSE between the
calculated degrees for the record of unknown trace and the
values of converged set of degrees, i.e., {D1 , . . . , Dr }. Finally,
we get the estimated probability set say [q1 , . . . , qr ]. Now, we
decide to assign a mobility model mk for the current trace if


qk > minProb, where, k := arg max q1 , . . . , qr . (4)
mk

The minProb is predefined constant with minimum probability

for accepting an estimation. The inputs of this phase are the
unknown trace files, two of covered zones and one of uncovered zone. We run the classification for all three traces. In
MIRACLE, the function EstimateMobilityModel(.) performs
this classification.
C. Learning Transition Between Two Models
If the classification for all the three zones do not match,
then, we conclude that the target has changed its mobility model inside the uncovered regions. Otherwise, the target has followed uniform mobility pattern in the whole

region under consideration. In MIRACLE, the function

EstimateModelTransition(.) tries to estimate the transitions
(if any) inside the uncovered region.
For a given transition, Mi Mj Mk , where i, j, k 1,
we estimate the mobility model Mj for the coverage hole. For
each transition, we trained the LA assigned to each transition.
The process involves estimation of mobility models Mi and Mk
in covered zones first, followed by input from the training set
of the estimated transition.
D. Discussion
1) Time Complexity Analysis: Let us consider that the number of mobility models equals r, the number of trace files for
each mobility model equals , and the number of records in
each of these traces equals . For executing the training phase,
the SLWE classifier performs (r ) number of read operations followed by feature set update operations. Given five
attributes in a feature set. Hence, time taken in the training
phase equals (5r ).
For performing mobility model estimation, let us compute the complexity upon selecting one action (i.e., mobility
model) by the classifier. We have two covered zones with one
unknown trace of each. Total read/update operations of feature
sets needed to perform for those traces equals 10 . Assuming
covered and uncovered zones have comparable dimensions,
two extrapolation operations are required for two covered
zones. So, the extrapolations need 2 operations. Then, in
post-extrapolation phase, trajectory operations are required
for uncovered zone. To find POI, we take the worst case
scenario, i.e., Case-III as explained in Section IV-A2, in complexity computation. First, finding POI in this case requires
2 operations, and, after the operations, we come to know
that there is no POT. Then, two incisions in the mid-range
are performed on the extrapolated trajectories, which takes
2( /2) operations. Next, CreateBridge(.) function is executed
for Case-III. Asymptotically, it can be assumed that bridge
length will degenerate to half of zone Z2 s virtual trajectory
length. Thus, it takes /2 operations. Again, for executing
FuseTrajectory(.), we generate virtual trajectory for zone Z2
which takes operations. Mobility Model estimation is, then,
invoked taking (minPass 2r ) unit times. Thus, overall time
complexity is as follows:

+ + minPass 2r
2
= (5r + 14.5 + minPass 2r).
(5)

Time = 5r + 10 + 2 + +

Asymptotically, we can represent the time complexity of

mobility model estimation process equals O( ), for r <<
and << .
2) Theoretical Analysis: The learning estimator updates its
action probabilities following the SLWE [12] scheme. Let qi (t)
be the probability of estimating a mobility model mi at the
tth time instant. As the weak estimation scheme exhibits better estimation with the increase of number of iterations, the
behavior of the random environment becomes increasingly evident. In such an environment, we propose the following two
lemmas.

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MISRA et al.: MIRACLE USING STOCHASTIC LEARNING WEAK ESTIMATOR

Lemma 1: For a multinomial distribution of r number

of mobility models {m1 , . . . , mr }, let us assume a set of
statistically independent random variables x1 , x2 , . . . , xr corresponds to the action set 1 , 2 , . . . , r with mean equal
, u2 , . . . , ur , respectively. Define a random variable
to u1
r
y =
i=1 xi . Now, we state that, if the density functions
f1 (x), f2 (x), . . . , fr (x) of x1 , x2 , . . . , xr are symmetric (with
respect to their means u1 , u2 , . . . , ur , respectively), then the
random
variable y is also symmetric (with respect to its mean
E[y] = ri=1 ui .
Proof: We adopt the similar methodology as in
[50, Lemma 1] for formulating this lemma. Therefore,
the proof of the above lemma is also available in [50].
Lemma 2: Each mobility model is characterized by a
feature set having values correspond to five degrees, say,
d1 , d2 , . . . , d5 . Let k1 , k2 , . . . , k5 be the means and
(1k )2 , (2k )2 , . . . , (5k )2 be the variances of the symmetrically
distributed (with respect to their means) degree values received
from the environment for an action k of action set 1 , . . . , r .
The actions correspond to the selection of a mobility model
by SLWE. Let e1 (t), e2 (t), . . . , er (t) be the stochastic estimates
of MSE used by the reinforcement scheme at time instant t.
The reinforcement scheme is the basis of the learning process of a learning automata, as explained in Section IV-B3
for the SLWE [12]. Then, we say that d1k (t), d2k (t), . . . , d5k (t)
are symmetrically distributed (with respect to their means)
random variable with means equal to k1 , k2 , . . . , k5 , where
k = 1, 2, . . . , r, signifies the action index (i.e., mobility model
index).
Proof: A normal distribution can be designated as N(.). We
use the distribution N(.) in this paper to imbibe a notion of
convergence in automation by reducing the variance of various
degrees characterizing the mobility models. We use the notation x = N(, 2 ) for a random variable x to signify its normal
distribution with mean and variance 2 . In MIRACLE, each
window consists of a mandatory number of user-defined minPass passes for probability update. Let us consider that the
action k is selected by SLWE. If k is chosen, then the reward
precondition would imply that ek (t) in (6) is minimum
ek (t) =

5

1
k
k 2
dj (t) dj
5

(6)

TABLE I
S IMULATION PARAMETERS

Apropos, mean E[djk (t)] and its variance is

minPass k

j
+ 0 = kj
E djk (t) =
minPass


2
Var djk (t) = minPass jk2 + 2 djk (t) .

(8)
(9)

For the other case, i.e., if ek (t) > max , we have Var[djk (t)] =
2 . We can, therefore, say that d k (t) is a symminPassk2 +max
j
metrically distributed random variable with respect to its mean
equal to kj , k = 1, 2, . . . , r, j = 1, 2, . . . , 5. This concludes
the proof. The methodology adopted in this proof follows [50].
The basic difference of MIRACLE with [50] is that the proposed scheme estimates the mobility patterns inside a coverage
hole, whereas the scheme in [50] addressed the QoS routing
issue in asynchronous transfer mode networks. However, both
works use stochastic estimation learning automata [39], which
has significant influence on the proof of this lemma.
The above result has the following implications.
1) When the feature set is within 1 limit, individual
degrees constituting the set have all their values calculated so far are symmetrically distributed with respect
to the mean at convergence.
2) The value of mean of a given degree within 1 limit
can be taken as converged value of the degree.

j=1

where, dj denotes the converged feature set of an action k .

k

For dj to be converged at time t, the estimator satisfies

ek (t) < max , where is an internal LA parameter which
determines the rate of change of estimate, and max is the maximum permitted standard deviation of the stochastic estimate.
Then
minPass k
dji (t)
i=1
k
+
(7)
dj (t) =
minPass
2

where, = N(0, 2 djk (t) ). We can, therefore, state that djk (t)
is a sum of symmetric random variables, since djik (t), i =
1, 2, . . . , minPass, are symmetrically distributed with mean kj
and variance (jk )2 . is also a symmetric random variable.

V. S IMULATION AND E VALUATION

We evaluate the performance of MIRACLE using simulations. Table I describes the values of various simulation
parameters. In the training phase, we created on an average
30 trace files for each mobility model. We got the converged
set of degrees for the set of five specified features after the
execution of the training phase, as shown in Table II. All
the values of degrees were found to be within 1 standard
deviation limit. The received results are then normalized to
the scale 0 to 1. It is pertinent to mention that the value of
minPass parameter is determined heuristically. After executing
the estimation algorithm multiple times for all the mobility
models, we observed that, sometimes, the estimation does not
provide correct estimation, as the process discontinues after a
few iterations. To avoid such local convergence, we restricted

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TABLE II
C ONVERGED D EGREES FOR E ACH M ETRIC ( IN N ORMALIZED F ORM )

(a)

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

(b)

Fig. 2. Effects of learning rate () on the (a) probability and (b) number of
iterations required to achieve convergence.

the algorithm to be executed at least minPass number of iterations, which equals 5, according to other parameter settings
provided in this section. Before indulging into the details of
simulation results, we discuss about the cross-validation (CV)
technique used for validating the results.
CV is a statistical tool of evaluating and comparing learning algorithms by arranging data into two parts: 1) one is used
to train a model and 2) the other is used to validate it. The
basic form of CV is k-fold CV. This paper aims to validate the
performance (estimation accuracy) of SLWE-based estimator
by taking into consideration the available trace files of covered zones, and the possibility of mobility model transitions
inside the uncovered zone. In other words, we would estimate
the Mj of uncovered zone j for Mi Mj Mk transitions
among the mobility models inside the zones Zi , Zj , and Zk ,
respectively. In the model estimation, we consider two cases.
First, the estimated models for the covered zones are same,
i.e., Mi = Mk . Second, the estimated models for the covered
zones are different, i.e., Mi = Mk .
A. Experiment 1: Mobility Model Estimation
We know that the learning rate () controls the rate of convergence in SLWE-based schemes. Therefore, we performed
the mobility model estimation experiment under the varying
values of learning rate to understand its impact on the process
of estimation. In this experiment, we ensured that the target
follows the same mobility model inside the covered zones, that
is, M1 = M3 . In the next experiment, we would estimate the
model while the target changes its model inside the uncovered
zone.
1) Probability of Convergence: We measured the probability of convergence, and the received results for all the mobility
models are plotted in Fig. 2(a). We clarify that the convergence
probability is a saturated value of probability of a mobility
model under consideration, which is frozen at a point where

(e)
Fig. 3. CV results on the convergence of all mobility models. (a) GM mobility
model. (b) MM mobility model. (c) PMM mobility model. (d) RPGM mobility
model. (e) Pursue mobility model.

variations after many iterations cease to vary outside 1 . Using

Algorithm 3, we get the convergence probabilities for all the
mobility models under varying learning rate, as depicted in
Fig. 2(a). The GM mobility model exhibits a decent success probability, when the value of increases beyond 0.2,
which implies that the trace-files of this model do not converge at faster rates of convergence. The RPGM and Pursue
mobility models maintain a flatter curve with less variations
in the converging probabilities. In other words, they indicate
a decent success rate for any values of . The MM and the
PMM mobility models show almost similar trends of success
probabilities for the almost entire range of values. On an
average, we observed that all the mobility models under consideration exhibit the probability of convergence more or equal
to 0.6 for any values of > 0.2.
2) Number of Iterations for Convergence: The results
depicting the trends in convergence in terms of the number
of iterations it takes to converge are shown in Fig. 2(b). It
can be observed from the figure that the GM mobility model
shows the decreasing trends in number of iterations it takes to
converge as the value of increases. The maximum number
of iterations, i.e., 102 is observed when = 0.2. The RPGM
mobility model has a group of nodes moving with reference
to a group-center. In this model, the number of iterations
decreases gradually with the increase in the value of . Except
the Pursue, all other mobility models show sudden decrease
in number of iteration for the learning rate higher than 0.3.
However, for high learning values, all the models exhibits very

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MISRA et al.: MIRACLE USING STOCHASTIC LEARNING WEAK ESTIMATOR

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

(g)

(h)

(i)

(e)

Fig. 4. Results of trajectory operations in Z2 for different combinations of mobility model transitions inside the zone. (a) PMM to MM. (b) PMM to GM.
(c) MM to PMM. (d) MM to Pursue. (e) Pursue to PMM. (f) Pursue to RPGM. (g) GM to Pursue. (h) GM to RPGM. (i) RPGM to PMM.
(j) RPGM to Pursue.

high convergence speed, such as it equals to almost 20 iteration

for = 0.9.
3) Cross-Validation: The efficacy of the classifier was estimated by CV. One round of CV involves partitioning a sample
of data into complementary subsets, performing the analysis on
one subset (called the training set), and validating the analysis
on the other subset (called the validation set or testing set). To
reduce variability, multiple rounds of CV are performed using
different partitions, and the validation results are averaged over
the rounds. In k-fold CV, the original sample is randomly partitioned into k equal size sub-samples. Out of the k sub-samples,
a single sub-sample is retained as validation data for testing
the model, and the remaining (k 1) sub-samples are used
as the training data. The CV process is then repeated k times
(the folds), with each of the k sub-samples used exactly once as
the validation data. In this paper, we adopted 2-CV, 4-CV, and
10-CV. The results are depicted in Fig. 3. From the figures,
we observed that the probability of successful classification
greatly varies for fully random mobility models, such as GM.
On the other hand, group mobility models, such as RPGM
and Pursue, show high success rate for higher values of .
Nevertheless, the success rate of geographic mobility models,
such as MM and PMM, are also significantly good.
4) Summary of Estimation Results: From this experiment,
we have seen that the probability of estimation for each mobility model is on an average reasonably high (> 0.6) under the
higher learning rates.
B. Experiment 2: Mobility Model Transition
This experiment requires the results of trajectory operations (shown in Section IV-A) for the uncovered zone. For
trajectory operations, the input traces were taken from zones
Z1 and Z3 in which the mobility models inside the covered zones are different. A large repository of each possible
transition was created for this purpose. It is noteworthy to
mention that, we assume only one possible transition throughout the trajectory of the target under tracking. We plan to
extend it further for multiple transitions in the future. Under
such consideration, we depict few representative results for
each combination of transitions in Fig. 4. We provide all
the possible transitions in Appendix B (Fig. 8), which is
available in the online supplementary material. The results

show a photographic elucidation of post-trajectory operations.

The Z1 part of fused trajectory is ticked with circles (and
is colored blue) and Z3 part with stars (and is colored red).
The fused trajectories are bound to depict nonhomogeneous
results when the transitions are made between disparate mobility models, such as random model and geographic model.
Fig. 4(b), (d), and (i) shows such nonhomogeneous results.
Being random models the GM, Pursue, and RPGM were
expected to show varied patterns from trace to trace. Although
MM and PMM are both geographically constrained models, some discontinuities can be expected due to the type
of path and map used to generate the mobility model, as
shown in Fig. 4(a) and (c). The augmentation of the aforesaid fact can also be seen in Fig. 4(e), (g), and (j), wherein
the apparent continuity of motion, despite transition at POT,
is relatively smooth. Nevertheless, the randomness in traces is
pretty evident in random models, as shown in Fig. 4(f) and (h).
1) Effects of Learning Rate on Mobility Model Transitions:
In LA, the action probabilities are updated as per the reinforcement scheme employed, which is SLWE in our case. In
this scheme, value controls the rate of convergence. It was
pertinent to see its effect on the estimation probability as well.
In this experiment, the repository of trace files for each transition was exposed to band [0.05, 0.99] of values of . The
convergence probability and convergence rate of estimating the
exact mobility model transitions are shown in Figs. 5 and 6,
respectively.
The increase of convergence probability with the higher
learning capability is justified by the upward trend of plots, as
shown in Fig. 5. The figure shows that the peak probability
values are more than 0.7 in almost all cases when the learning rate is higher than 0.7. However, we noticed that the plots
have intermittent small spikes and dips in values. The fact is
attributed to the transition across mobility model classes and
also the randomness in random model traces. The peak probability value is also less than 0.7 in some cases, such as the
transitions involving the GM mobility model. This can also
be attributed to the fact of a transition involving larger heterogeneity due to the type of traces in the instant case being
from a city-based model to a random model.
Our claim on rate of convergence is validated by all the
graphs showing gradual downward slope with the increase of

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON CYBERNETICS

(a)

(b)

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

(c)

(d)

(e)
Fig. 5. Effects of learning rate () on the probability of convergence for
mobility model transition. Transition from (a) GM to others, (b) MM to others,
(c) PMM to others, (d) Pursue to others, and (e) RPGM to others.

value of , as shown in Fig. 6. It highlights the fact that the

algorithm took less number of iterations for convergence if
the learning rate is high. Specifically, the number of iteration required for convergence in best and worst cases, that we
observed in the experiment, are 20 and 102, respectively.
2) Cross-Validation: The cross validation results are
depicted in Fig. 7.
a) 2-CV results: The percentages of successful validation
of mobility model transitions from GM, MM, PMM, Pursue,
and RPGM are 71, 69.25, 70, 66.25, and 66, respectively,
yielding an overall average successful validation in case of
2-CV to be 68.5. A comparatively lower 2-CV figures were
noticed in case of MM-GM, Pursue-RPGM, and RPGM-GM
transitions. This can be attributed to the fact that in MM, the
nodes are moving spatially in a street scenario, which depends
on the graph model used to emulate the city streets. On the
other hand, GM is highly temporal model with dependence of
its behavior on a tuning factor. In the Pursue model, the pursuit
of the target node by other nodes depends on the movement
of the former, which is controlled by the random way-point
model. Thus, the Pursue-RPGM transition behavior is difficult
to generalize. On the similar line, the RPGM-GM result can
be explained.
b) 4-CV results: The 4-CV of the results exhibited the
percentages of successful validation for transitions from GM,
MM, PMM, Pursue, and RPGM to be 69, 70, 60.75, 64,
and 67.5, respectively, yielding an overall average successful
validation in case of 4-CV equals 66.25.

(e)
Fig. 6. Effects of learning rate () on the number of iterations for achieving convergence under mobility model transition. Transition from (a) GM to
others, (b) MM to others, (c) PMM to others, (d) Pursue to others, and (e)
RPGM to others.

3) Summary of Transition Results: In this experiment, we

observed few interesting outcomes from the figures. For example, all the transitions from GM to other mobility models
were dominated by the estimation of GM in Z2 . On the other
hand, from MM to GM, PMM, and Pursue were estimated
to GM, PMM, and Pursue, respectively. However, Pursue to
GM and MM were estimated to Pursue. It was completely
different for the transition from RPGM to PMM, which was
estimated to Pursue mobility model. In brief, the confidence percentages for all possible transitions from a given
mobility model to the GM, MM, PMM, RPGM, and Pursue
are 59, 71, 66, 62, and 77, respectively. Overall, there is 67%
chance that the mobility model transition is correctly estimated
inside the coverage hole, which is quite satisfactory for the first
attempt toward the estimation while transition is allowed.
C. Conclusion From the Simulation Results
In brief, we summarize our observations from the experimental results discussed above as follows.
1) The MIRACLE algorithm is able to generate a virtual
trajectory for the unknown zone, given a pair of known
traces in the covered zones.
2) The mobility model estimation algorithm achieves more
than 60% success rate for both cases of with and without
transitions.
3) The number of iterations required for achieving convergence in estimation for both cases are on an average

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MISRA et al.: MIRACLE USING STOCHASTIC LEARNING WEAK ESTIMATOR

(b)

(a)

11

accuracy with more than 60%, and the mobility model transition show on an average 67% accuracy. We believe that this
paper forms the basis of further addition of more models in
estimation. Additionally, we want to extend this paper for an
array of covered and uncovered zones in WSNs in the future.
Nevertheless, we evaluate the performance of the MIRACLE
using simulation only. We have plan to test the scheme in
real-life environment in the future.
R EFERENCES

(d)

(c)

(e)
Fig. 7. CV results for successful estimation of mobility model transitions.
(a) CV: GM to other models. (b) CV: MM to other models. (c) CV: PMM
to other models. (d) CV: RPGM to other models. (e) CV: Pursue to other
models.

below 102, according to the above mentioned experimental setup. It is pertinent to mention that this is not
the upper bound of the parameter. We have plan to find
out the upper bound of the parameter in the future.
4) We have now a bigger picture about how transition
from one model to another model occurs across different
classes of mobility models.
VI. C ONCLUSION
The existence of coverage holes, as well as the change of
mobility pattern inside the territory of WSNs is a reality. These
practical issues were the starting premise of this paper, and the
proposed algorithm successfully estimates the target mobility
and transitions in WSNs. We generated traces for uncovered
zones from the traces obtained by sensing the target motion
in covered zones. We implemented an SLWE-based estimator
coupled with trajectory extrapolation and fusion techniques
to arrive at estimation results. We used five mobility models
for simulation and analysis. The approach taken to estimate
mobility model also considers the possible transitions between
mobility models across two covered zones with a coverage
hole in between. To the best of our knowledge, this is one
of the first attempts to solve the mobility model estimation
problem inside an uncovered zones, as well as, in presence
of mobility model transition from one model to another. The
results of mobility model estimation show significantly high

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Sudip Misra (SM11) received the Ph.D. degree

in computer science from Carleton University, in
Ottawa, ON, Canada.
He is an Associate Professor with the School
of Information Technology, Indian Institute of
Technology Kharagpur, Kharagpur, India. He has
authored over 200 scholarly research papers. His current research interests include algorithm design for
emerging communication networks.
Dr. Misra was a recipient of eight Research
Paper Awards in different conferences, the IEEE
ComSoc Asia Pacific Outstanding Young Researcher Award from the IEEE
Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM) 2012, the Canadian
Governments prestigious Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council
(NSERC) Post-Doctoral Fellowship, and the Humboldt Research Fellowship
in Germany.

Sukhchain Singh (M15) received the B.Tech.

degree in electronics from Jawaharlal Nehru
University, New Delhi, India, in 2005, and the
M.Tech. degree in information technology from
the School of Information Technology, Indian
Institute of Technology Kharagpur, Kharagpur,
India, in 2013.
He has teaching experience for over three years.
His current research interests include algorithm and
protocol design for wireless sensor networks.

Manas Khatua (S12) received the B.Tech. in computer science and engineering from the University of
Kalyani, Kalyani, India, in 2003, and the M.Tech.
degree in information technology from Bengal
Engineering and Science University, Howrah, India,
in 2007. He is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree
with the School of Information Technology, Indian
Institute of Technology Kharagpur, Kharagpur,
India.
He was with Tata Consultancy Services, Kolkata,
India, for two and a half years. He was a Lecturer
with the Bankura Unnayani Institute of Engineering, Bankura, India, for over
two years. He is currently an Research Assistant with the Singapore University
of Technology and Design, Singapore. He researches on wireless LAN, sensor
networks, mobile cloud computing, and network security.