Patent ID: 8902792

Claim:
A computer system for forming a convex polygon of a plurality of mobile sensors in a defined area of interest, the computer system comprising: a bus system; a storage device connected to the bus system, wherein the storage device stores computer readable program code; and a processor unit connected to the bus system, wherein the processor unit executes the computer readable program code to: analyze qualitative sensor output data received from the plurality of mobile sensors in the defined area of interest using an optimization problem; determine whether the plurality of mobile sensors forms the convex polygon within the defined area of interest; generate an objective function and a set of constraints corresponding to the optimization problem in response to determining that the plurality of mobile sensors does form the convex polygon within the defined area of interest, wherein the objective function is a difference between a vector associated with prototype data that describes a current status of the defined area of interest and a sum of vector weight values associated with the plurality of mobile sensors that represent the qualitative sensor output data; and calculate a sparse solution of the optimization problem using the objective function and the set of constraints to determine vector weight values for each of the plurality of mobile sensors.