Patent ID: 8478319

Claim:
A distributed sensor network for locating and classifying signal sources comprising: a base station, and at least one cluster having a plurality of sensor nodes with each sensor node including: a sensor, means, connected to receive a signal from said sensor, for dividing a selected time increment of said signal into blocks of time increments of said signal that are smaller than said selected time increment, means for performing a first Fourier-based transform on each said block, means for selecting a plurality of frequency peaks for each said block, means for selecting a plurality of subbands of said signal based on the frequency of occurrence of said frequency peaks of said blocks, means for collaborating with other sensor nodes in said cluster to select a plurality of common subbands from subbands selected by said nodes in said cluster, means for performing a second Fourier-based transform on said selected time increment of said signal, and means for transmitting said common subbands of said selected time increment of said signal to said base station, whereby said common subbands include features relevant to a source of said signal and said base station locates and classifies said source by processing said common subbands received from said sensor nodes.