Coverage in mobile wireless sensor networks (M-WSN): A survey

Abstract

A mobile wireless sensor network (M-WSN) consists of sensors equipped with locomotive platforms to allow movement after initial deployment. M-WSNs are useful for environments that are difficult and/or dangerous for sensor deployment. A key challenge in sensor networks deployment is to ensure that deployed sensors provide the required coverage for the area of interest, while ensuring connectivity of the deployed network. Sensor coverage and connectivity problems were investigated thoroughly in the literature for various types of WSNs, and several techniques were proposed with various capability and limitations. This paper attempts to provide a comprehensive classification and categorization for the various techniques and algorithms used in M-WSNs for enhancing coverage after initial deployment, and for maintaining coverage after node failure. We present a mathematical formulation for each coverage type, and survey and analyze approaches proposed in the literature to maintain coverage in each type in the context of M-WSN.