The primary idea behind deploying sensor networks is to utilize the distributed sensing capability provided by tiny, low powered and low cost devices. Multiple sensing devices can be used cooperatively and collaboratively to capture events or monitor space more effectively than a single sensing device. The realm of applications envisioned for sensor networks is diverse including military, aerospace, industrial, commercial, environmental and health monitoring. Typical examples include: traffic monitoring of vehicles, crossborder infiltration-detection and assessment, military reconnaissance and surveillance, target tracking, habitat monitoring and structure monitoring, to name a few. Most of the applications envisioned with sensor networks demand highly reliable, accurate and fault-tolerant data acquisition process. The integrity of data alone can have tremendous effects on the performance of any data acquisition system. Due to the low manufacturing cost, the sensors lend themselves to be deployed in large numbers with a high spatial distribution. Such a large deployment scheme often generates enormous amount of data that needs to be efficiently summarized and delivered for analysis and ix TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES .