Coverage and latency aware actor placement mechanisms in WSANs

Abstract

In Wireless Sensor and Actor Networks (WSANs), responsiveness to serious events is of utmost importance and thus, minimal latency should be experienced. In addition, since these actions can be taken at any spot within the monitored area, the actors should provide maximal coverage of the area. In this paper, we propose two actor placement mechanisms for WSANs, namely COLA and COCOLA that consider both the delay requirements of data collection and the coverage of the area. COLA evenly distributes the actors in the region for maximised coverage first. Actors then collaboratively form clusters. Each individual actor repositions itself at a new location that enables minimal latency in collecting data in its cluster. COCOLA is an extension to COLA which additionally enforces connectivity among the actors by assigning appropriate locations to each actor for improved coverage and reduced latency. The effectiveness of both approaches is evaluated through extensive simulation experiments.