  This paper investigates the problem of adaptive power allocation for
distributed best linear unbiased estimation (BLUE) of a random parameter at the
fusion center (FC) of a wireless sensor network (WSN). An optimal
power-allocation scheme is proposed that minimizes the $L^2$-norm of the vector
of local transmit powers, given a maximum variance for the BLUE estimator. This
scheme results in the increased lifetime of the WSN compared to similar
approaches that are based on the minimization of the sum of the local transmit
powers. The limitation of the proposed optimal power-allocation scheme is that
it requires the feedback of the instantaneous channel state information (CSI)
from the FC to local sensors, which is not practical in most applications of
large-scale WSNs. In this paper, a limited-feedback strategy is proposed that
eliminates this requirement by designing an optimal codebook for the FC using
the generalized Lloyd algorithm with modified distortion metrics. Each sensor
amplifies its analog noisy observation using a quantized version of its optimal
amplification gain, which is received by the FC and used to estimate the
unknown parameter.
