Spatial sampling design problem has been studied by statisticians for a long time in different application areas such as agriculture, soil science, and ecology. Both probability based sampling such as simple random sampling and stratified random sampling and model based optimal spatial sampling approaches have been used in practice for different applications. Though many of the methodologies in spatial sampling design can be used to help design the sampling plan of wireless sensor network (WSN), WSN has some characteristics which is not present in a traditional network, such as the energy constraints and the communication constraints, which poses new challenges to statisticians. In this talk we will give a general discussion on the connection between classical spatial sampling design and the sampling design for WSN, and present some preliminary results on the optimal sampling design of a WSN for parameter estimation under energy and communication constraints.

Keywords: Optimal design; Semi definite programming

Biography: Zhengyuan Zhu is Assistant Professor in the Department of Statistics at Iowa State University. He obtained his PhD from the University of Chicago in 2002 and was an Assistant Professor at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill before joining Iowa State University. His main research interests are in spatial statistics, spatial sampling design, and survey sampling, with applications in environmental statistics, natural resource monitoring, and astrostatistics.