An energy-efficient irregular hexagonal tessellation-based approach for connected k-coverage in planar wireless sensor networks

Abstract

In the design of planar wireless sensor networks (PWSNs), the preliminary tasks are to achieve both coverage and connectivity, which are essential for the correct operation of this type of network. A PWSN is said to be in perfect operational condition only when it is capable of guaranteeing both coverage of the field and connectivity among all the active sensor nodes. In order to achieve both coverage and connectivity in PWSNs, we intend to solve the problem of connected k-coverage in PWSNs, where each point in a field of interest is covered (or sensed) by at least k sensor nodes (k > 1) simultaneously and all the participating sensor nodes in the k-coverage process are connected to each other. In our study, we found an irregular hexagon, denoted by IrHx(rs/n), as the best polygon for tessellating a field of interest and allowing to deploy sensor nodes, where n > 1 is a natural number and rs is the radius of the sensing range of the sensor nodes. First, we construct our proposed irregular hexagon, IrHx(rs/n), which forms a tile, using the regular hexagon. Second, we compute the minimum sensor density required to k-cover a planar field of interest using our proposed IrHx(rs/n) tile. Third, we establish a relationship between the sensing and communication radii of the sensor nodes to ensure network connectivity in k-covered PWSNs. Finally, we substantiate our theory with various simulation results.