One fundamental issue in sensor networks is the coverage problem, which reflects how well a sensor network is monitored or tracked by sensors. In this paper, we formulate this problem as a decision problem, whose goal is to determine whether every point in the service area of the sensor network is covered by at least k sensors, where k is a predefined value. The sensing ranges of sensors can be unit disks or non-unit disks. We present polynomial-time algorithms, in terms of the number of sensors, that can be easily translated to distributed protocols. The result is a generalization of some earlier results where only k = 1 is assumed. Applications of the result include: (i) positioning applications, (ii) situations which require stronger environmental monitoring capability, and (iii) scenarios which impose more stringent fault-tolerant capability.
For the general coverage problem, Huang et al. REF studied the problem of determining if the area is sufficiently kcovered, i.e., every point in the target area is covered by at least k sensors.
The coverage problem in a wireless sensor network
WSNA '03
Computer Science