Planar and Spatial Approaches for Joint k-Coverage and Data Collection Using Homogeneous Duty-Cycled Sensors

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter focuses on the problem of joint k-coverage, sensor scheduling, and geographic forwarding in planar and spatial wireless sensor networks. It is well known that sensor scheduling is an important mechanism that helps densely deployed wireless sensor networks save energy. On the other hand, geographic forwarding is an efficient scheme for wireless sensor networks as it requires maintaining only local topology information to forward data to their destination. Most of geographic forwarding protocols assume that all sensors are always on (or active) during forwarding. However, such an assumption is unrealistic for real-world applications where sensors are switched on or off (or inactive). This chapter describes our cover-sense-inform framework for connected k-covered wireless sensor networks, where k-coverage, sensor scheduling, and geographic forwarding are jointly considered. Based on our work on connected k-coverage, which is discussed earlier in Chap. 5, we propose the first design of geographic forwarding protocols for duty-cycled k-covered wireless sensor networks with and without data aggregation. For the case of planar wireless sensor networks, this chapter discusses a few protocols that exploit the geometry of the configurations, which result from our connected k-coverage protocols, and the concept of virtual potential fields. For the case of spatial wireless sensor networks, it discusses our composite geographic forwarding protocol, which uses a combination of deterministic and opportunistic schemes to forward sensed data towards the sink. Moreover, it shows various simulation results of the proposed geographic forwarding protocols and compares them against others.